"Thanks! On that understanding we might come to terms."
"Then there's another matter. Managing my farm won't help you much, and I feel that I owe something to the settlement. If it looks as if the moneylender would be too strong for you, and you're short of funds, you can write to me. I can afford to spend something on Allenwood's defense."
They talked it over, and when Harding left the hotel he had promised, in case of necessity, to ask Brand's help. Moreover, although he had not expected this, he felt some sympathy and a half reluctant liking for his beaten rival.
During the same day Davies had a confidential talk with Gerald.
"Do you know that your mother and sister are in town with Harding?" he asked.
"Yes; but I haven't seen them yet."
"Rather not meet Harding? Are you pleased that the man's going to marry your sister?"
"I'm not!" Gerald answered curtly.
He stopped writing and frowned at the book in which he was making an entry. He felt very bitter against Harding, who had insulted him, but he was moved by a deeper and less selfish feeling. It jarred upon his sense of fitness that his sister should marry a low-bred fellow with whom he was convinced she could not live happily. Beatrice had lost her head, but she was a Mowbray and would recover her senses; then she would rue the mistake she had made. She might resent Gerald's interference and would, no doubt, suffer for a time if he succeeded in separating her from her lover; but men, as he knew, got over an irregular passion, and he had no reason to believe that women were different.
"She will marry him unless something is done," Davies resumed cunningly.