"There lives at Vail," he said, "a man whom I honour as much as any one in the world, my great-uncle, Francis Vail. He is old, he has led the most unhappy life, yet, if you met him casually, you would say he was a man who had never seen sorrow, so cheerful is he, so full of kindly spirits."
"He is your only relation, is he not?" asked the girl.
"He is. Who told you?"
"Lady Oxted. I beg your pardon. I did not mean to interrupt."
"He has led a life of continuous and most unmerited misfortune," said Harry, "and when I began just now 'I wonder,' I was going to say, I wonder whether the Luck will come to him? You see it is a family thing. He, one would think, might get the good, not I. And I honestly assure you that I should be more than delighted if he did."
"It is about him you would tell me?" asked Evie.
"About him. I need not give you the smaller details. His unhappy marriage, his sudden poverty, his bankruptcy even, for there is one thing in his life so terrible that it seems to me to overshadow everything else."
They had come to a garden seat at the far end of the orchard, and here Evie sat down. Harry stood beside her, one foot on the bench, looking not at her, but out over the creamy, sleeping landscape.
"It is nearly twenty-two years ago," he said, "that my uncle was staying down at an estate we used to have in Derbyshire, which has since been sold. The place next us belonged to some people called Harmsworth— What?"
An involuntary exclamation had come to Evie's lips, but she checked it before it was speech.