“Yes, yes, a poor little dab of a woman! I don’t know what your notions may be, Carlyon, but I should advise selling the place if any could be found to buy such a ramshackle, old-fashioned house.”
“No doubt she will do so, but until we have probate it is too early to be making plans.”
“Of course. That is understood! But she cannot like to have such a place on her hands and to be put to the expense of paying the wages of I dare say four or five servants. I feel I should do all I can for her—poor Eustace’s bride, you know, and her circumstances so uncomfortable, for there is no blinking the fact that her father died under a cloud! I declare, I have a good mind to invite her to come up to London with me and to stay in Brook Street until she knows how things may stand! Then the servants may be paid off and the house closed. What do you say to that, eh?”
“I cannot advocate the leaving of the house untenanted, sir,” was all the answer he could win from Carlyon.
He very soon took himself off to bed, and Carlyon was able to join John, whom he found yawning over a dying fire.
“Hallo!” John said. “Has he been boring on forever? You should have let me bear you company!”
“No, you are too severe with him. He cannot talk al his ease in face of your grim scowls. I find it hard myself.”
“You!” John said, bursting out into a laugh. “Well, had he anything to say that was to the point?”
“He is very uneasy, I fancy. There was some talk of his having unwittingly led Eustace into temptation, as though he had a suspicion some worse mischief than he knows of might have been on hand.”
“Led him into temptation! Pray, how?”