“Does this bother you at all?” she inquired presently.

“Nothing to speak of,” Tavernake answered. “It had to come. I wasn't quite ready but that doesn't matter.”

“What shall you do now?” she asked.

“Borrow enough to buy the whole of the hill,” he replied.

She looked back.

“Won't that mean a great deal of money?”

He nodded.

“It will be a big thing, of course,” he admitted. “Never mind, I dare say I shall be able to interest some one in it. In any case, I never meant Mr. Dowling to make a fortune out of this.”

They walked on in silence a little further. Then she spoke again, with some hesitation.

“I suppose that what you have done is quite fair, Leonard?”