"Perhaps this house----" began Vernon.
She cut him short quickly. "I quite agree with you, and I know what you are about to say. It is too damp and too dismal for Ida. She is a flower who ought always to live in the sunshine."
"Lady Corsoon is coming down to stay with me to-day," ventured Towton anxiously, "so Miss Dimsdale might come and stay at The Grange."
"It's a capital idea. You can ask her for yourself, and as I know she thinks a great deal of you, Colonel, I hope you will be able to persuade her to pay the visit. She will be here shortly, but before she comes do tell me the meaning of my brother's extraordinary conduct."
"What makes you think the Colonel can explain?" asked Vernon unexpectedly.
Frances looked at him in surprise. "Why, I wrote after I received the Deed of Gift, asking if he had seen Francis. The Colonel replied that he would explain verbally when he came down. I have no reason to think that he knows anything of my brother's private business and I was astonished to hear that he could tell me anything. I only wrote because I wished the Colonel to see Ida, and as an afterthought asked about my brother. I thought you," she addressed the Colonel, "might have seen him in London."
"I did," replied Towton gravely; "at Professor Gail's."
"I know that; he went there to deliver a message from me. But why has he made over his property to me without a line of explanation save that he was going abroad? Did he tell you?"
"No. But I am not surprised that he has done so." Frances looked from one man to the other and, seeing their grave faces, she grew white and anxious looking. "What do you mean?"
"We saw Constantine Maunders," put in Vernon.