“Well, but — Of course, he can’t remain at Stanyon!”
“No.”
“I must say, that to be putting him in charge of anything,after what he has tried to do to us, seems to me the craziest notion I ever heard! However, if he can’t remain at Stanyon — and that he certainly cannot! — I daresay it may be best to send him to Jamaica. It would be bound to create a deal of talk and conjecture if he left us, and was still in England. Everyone would know there must have been something devilish bad to account for it, and I’m at one with you in wanting to hush the business up. Dash it, Gervase, it makes me as sick as a horse to think of a thing like this happening amongst us Frants! You had better do as you choose about it, I suppose!”
“Then will you, if you please, go and tell them to put my horses to, Martin?”
Martin glanced undecidedly at his cousin. “Well — ”
He caught the Earl’s eye, said, rather crossly: “Oh, as you please!” and walked out of the room.
There was a long silence. The Earl was absently studying the mountings of his pistol, a frown between his brows; and Theo continued for a full minute to stare down into the fire. He moved at last, and came back to the chair behind the table. He began mechanically to tidy the papers before him into heaps, saying in an expressionless voice: “I hope my successor will do as well by you as I have done.”
The Earl raised his eyes. “It is unlikely. I know that Stanyon has never had one who served it better, or loved it more. Alas, Theo! My father did you an ill turn, did he not?”
Their eyes met. After a moment Theo’s dropped to the pistol in his cousin’s hand. “Oh, put that thing away!” he said.
The Earl slid it into his pocket. “Go to Jamaica!” he said. “If my father, instead of bringing you up to think only of Stanyon, had given you this place, or some other, to have called your own! — if you would have let me repair his omissions — ! But it is all too late!”