"She is yours and she'll have an uncommonly good husband," said Mr. Malherb shortly. "Now talk of the farm. Did you note my sheep upon the Moor?"
"I did. They look most prosperous."
"There's a rascally law here that denies me the right to pasture more cattle on the Forest than I can winter upon the farm. For the overplus I am called to pay as though a stranger to Venville rights. A monstrous injustice, as I've told 'em. But to meet it I must build new great byres. Did you note the work?"
"I saw no new byres," answered Peter.
"Nay—I forgot. They are not yet begun. But so clearly do I view them in my mind, that for the moment I thought they existed already."
"You incur tremendous expenses."
"Why, naturally so. One does not come to Dartmoor empty-handed. To tame a desert and turn it into an important agricultural centre calls for capital among other things. Now let us join the ladies."
"Gladly," returned Mr. Norcot. "Those are the pleasantest words I can hear spoken under this roof. 'Tis not always so—but here. 'And beauty draws us with a single hair.' I wrote that to Grace when I heard that she had caught her first trout. She never answers my letters, by the way."
Presently the visitor told of his uncle's death. The story proved dramatic, and Mr. Norcot's method of delivering it was very deliberate and effective. Her kinsman's unhappy end specially interested Annabel, who had known him intimately in earlier days.
"You are to understand that the cloud fell upon my poor Uncle Norman when his wife left him. Some might have held her departure a happy circumstance, seeing the light nature of the minx; he took his fortune differently. To us it may seem strange that any circumstances would make life unendurable—apart from the question of morals. Massenger has a word on that—a sort of answer to Hamlet.