As he walked toward the house he looked back more than once at the high wall, wondering at the things it hid. Here was squalid poverty almost under the windows of the great, handsome house where Cousin Jasper lived with everything that heart could desire. It was the poverty, too, of a member of his own family. Here was jealous enmity also, a hatred that seemed to point ominously to trouble before them, to all the harm that could be accomplished by an angry, unscrupulous man. No wonder Cousin Jasper looked changed, and haunted. What hold did Anthony Crawford have upon his cousin; why should one have so little and the other so much; why did that high wall forbid all intercourse with that strange neighbor? It was plain to Oliver at last that their night ride through lanes and crossroads had been necessary because the wall cut off any direct path, and that the goal of their expedition in the dark had been Anthony Crawford's sagging, one-hinged gate.
The morning sun was rising higher, the cheerful sound of a grass cutter was going up and down the garden, and smoke was mounting from the kitchen chimney. With some care, lest he should be asked the cause of his scratched hands and torn sleeve, Oliver slipped into the house and sought his own room.
He and Janet talked over all that he had seen, but they could make little of it and were, indeed, more mystified than ever. At intervals during the day, they kept coming back to the subject and were still talking of it that evening as they sat in the library with the long windows open upon the terrace and upon the flowering garden. They had come to no conclusion, however, when the study door opened and Cousin Jasper came toward them across the hall. He looked less troubled to-night, and was smiling as though he had been looking forward to this hour they were to spend together. Yet his face changed in a moment at the sound of rattling wheels on the drive, followed by the appearance of a troubled Hotchkiss at the door, with the reluctant question:
"Will you see Mr. Crawford, sir?"
The visitor had not waited, but came pushing in behind him.
"We do not need to stand on ceremony," he said, "when it is all in the same family. These are your two guests, eh? You need not introduce them, we have met before. I saw the boy very recently, in fact; he seems to be an enterprising fellow and was conducting some investigations of his own. Well, well, we won't talk of it now."
Oliver writhed inwardly under his sharp glance, but could muster no appropriate reply. He was thinking again that Anthony Crawford might have been handsome except for those restless gray eyes that were set too near together. Although his host was obviously anxious to lead him away to the study, the visitor planted himself in the middle of the library floor and stood his ground firmly.
"Have you thought over my offer, Jasper?" he said. "Are you ready to give me my share, or shall I take all?"
"I have given up what seemed your share," Jasper Peyton returned steadily, "and rather than quarrel with you further I would gladly give you all. But I believe to shut one's eyes to justice is wrong, even in such a matter as this."
The other's calm broke suddenly under the force of ungovernable anger.