“It never can be quite the old time again, but when you are back at the old place it may be very near it.”
She looked at him reproachfully.
“You think that I shall change my mind, Mark, but at heart you know better. The day I am one and twenty I hope to carry out my intentions.”
“Well, as I have told you before, Millicent, I cannot control your actions, but I am at least master of my own. You can give away Crowswood to whom you like, but at least you cannot compel me to take it. Make it over to one of the hospitals if you like—that is within your power; but it is not in your power to force me into the mean action of enriching myself because you have romantic notions in your mind. I should scorn myself were I capable of doing such an action. I wonder you think so meanly of me as to suppose for a moment that I would do so.”
“It is a great pity my father did not leave the property outright to your father, then all this bother would have been avoided,” she said quietly. “I should still have had plenty to live upon without there being any fear of being loved merely for my money.”
“It would have been the same thing if he had,” Mark said stubbornly. “My father would not have taken it, and I am sure that I should not have taken it after him; you are his proper heiress. I don't say if he had left a son, and that son had been a second Bastow, that one would have hesitated, for he would probably have gambled it away in a year, the tenants might have been ruined, and the village gone to the dogs. Every man has a right to disinherit an unworthy son, but that is a very different thing from disinheriting a daughter simply from a whim. Well, don't let us talk about it any more, Millicent. It is the only thing that we don't agree about, and therefore it is best left alone.”
The next day Mark established himself at an inn in Peckham, and for six weeks made diligent inquiries, but without success. There were at least a dozen men who lived quietly and rode or drove to their business in town. Many of them were put aside as needing no investigation, having been residents there for years. Some of the others he saw start or return, but none of them corresponded in any way with the probable appearance of the man for whom he was in search. During this time he heard of several private coaches being held up on the road between Epsom and London, and three burglaries took place at Streatham.
He then moved to Stockwell. Before proceeding there he had his horse up again from Crowswood, and rode into Stockwell from the west. He was dressed now as a small country squire, and had a valise strapped behind his saddle. The inn there was a busy one.
“I want a room,” he said, as he alighted. “I shall probably stay here a few days.”
Presently he had a talk with the landlord.