They sent for her mother, but the very presence of Mrs. Layton seemed still further to excite her.
“But for you,” she cried, turning on her mother in her frantic grief, “he would never have been born! But for you I would have been with George—George Hill, from whom you parted me!”
It was a most painful scene. Mrs. Layton drew the gray-haired old squire out of the room, and tried to whisper some words of comfort in his ear.
“Grief has made poor Rachel beside herself,” she said. “Fancy her talking of George Hill now, when the poor fellow has been dead over ten years. They were children together, you know.”
But Mr. Temple made no answer. He knew very well that his wife was speaking the truth, and that his mother-in-law was not. He turned from Mrs. Layton and went into his library, and sat there alone, thinking. The boy’s death had changed everything. Mr. Temple was a rich man, for besides his own large property, he had in his youth married for his first wife the daughter and heiress of Sir Richard Devon, whose estates marched with his own. At her death this lady had left everything she possessed to her husband, and thus Mr. Temple was one of the largest land-owners in the country.
The old man sighed when he thought of all this, and covered his face with his hands. He was thinking who would now come after him; thinking of his heir. He knew who it must be. The Woodlea estates had been entailed by his father in the event of his having no children, beyond him. The late Mr. Temple had left two sons, Phillip, the heir, and John, who had gone into the army and died young. But he had married, and left a son, also named John. This John Temple the squire knew was now the heir to Woodlea. He was a man of some thirty years old, and occasionally had visited his uncle, but no great intimacy had existed between them.
John Temple had a fair fortune, and had not sought to increase it. He had been educated as a barrister, but he had never practiced. He had lived a good deal abroad, and led a roving life, it was said, but his uncle knew very little about him. He had had in truth small interest in him. But now all this was changed. His bright young son, his hope and pride, had passed away, and the old squire, sitting with his bowed head, knew that John Temple was his heir.
CHAPTER II.
THE MAYFLOWER.
Three days later they carried young Phillip Temple to his grave, and the new heir came to Woodlea as a mourner. His uncle had written to John Temple to tell him of the sad and untimely death of his son, and John Temple had received the news with a little shrug.