“The glass is always going down in Cornwall, and we are always in for another rough night,” responded the servitor curtly. “Are you going to stay much longer in the forsaken hole?”
“Not much longer,” replied his master in a mild tone.
“It is, perhaps, a dreary spot to you, but not to me—no, never to me. The last link in my long search has been found here—hidden away in this little out-of-the-way Cornish place. Think of that, Thalassa! I shall be Lord Turrald.”
“I don’t see what good it will do you,” retorted the man austerely. “You’ve spent a mint of money over it. I suppose that’s your own affair, though. But what’s to come next? That’s what I want to know.”
“When I leave Cornwall—”
“You mean we, don’t you?” Thalassa interrupted.
“Of course I mean you as well as myself,” Robert Turold replied almost humbly. “I should be sorry to part with you, Thalassa, you must be well aware of that. It is my intention to purchase a portion of the family estate at Great Missenden, which is at present in the market, and spend the remainder of my life in the place which once belonged to my ancestors. That has been the dream of my life, and I shall soon be able to carry it out.”
A silence fell between them upon this statement, and Robert Turold’s eyes turned towards his papers again. But Thalassa stood watching him, as though he had something on his mind still. He brought it out abruptly—
“And what about your daughter?”
“My daughter is going to London with my sister for a prolonged visit,” said Robert Turold hurriedly. “She needs womanly training and other advantages which I, in my preoccupations, have been unable to bestow upon her. It is greatly to her advantage to go.”