“Why so?”
“Because Sir Brook Fossbrooke has just purchased it.”
“What nonsense! you know as well as I do that he could n't purchase a dog-kennel. That property was valued at sixteen thousand pounds four years ago,—it is worth twenty now; and you talk to me of this beggar buying it!”
“I tell you what he told me, and it was this: Some mine that Sir Brook owned in Sardinia has turned out to be all silver, and in consequence he has suddenly become immensely rich,—so rich, indeed, that he has already determined to settle this estate on Lucy Lendrick; and intends, if he can induce Lord Drumcarran to part with 'The Forest,' to add it to the grounds.”
Sewell grasped his hair with both hands, and ground his teeth together with passion as he listened.
“You believe this story, I suppose?” said he at last.
“Yes; why should I not believe it?”
“I don't believe a word of it. I see the drift—I saw the drift of it before you had told me ten words. This tale is got up to lull us into security, and to quiet our suspicions. Lendrick knows well the alarm his unexpected return is likely to give us, and to allay our anxieties they have coined this narrative, as though to imply they will be rich enough not to care to molest us, nor stand between us and this old man's money. Don't you see that?”
“I do not. It did not occur to me before, and I do not admit it now.”
“I ought not to have asked you. I ought to have remembered what old Fossbrooke once called 'the beautiful trustfulness of your nature.'”