“I think you would call it a fancy,” said Tony, with a curious smile. “Still, I want it done.”
The lawyer went out, and for half an hour Tony sat alone with a haggard face in the gloomy room listening to the patter of the rain. It had ceased, however, when he drove Violet Wayne, who had remained at Northrop with her mother, home. Mrs. Wayne was to follow with a neighbor, and Tony and the girl were alone in the dog-cart, which went splashing down the miry road until he pulled the horse up where the river came roaring down in brown flood under a straggling wood on the side of a hill. Tony glanced at the flying vapors overhead, wet trees, and dimly gleaming water that spread among the rushes on the meadow land, while the hoarse clamor of the flood almost drowned his voice when he turned to his companion.
“That force will no longer go to waste. I told Craythorne to-day he could let the people who want to put up their mill have the land,” he said. “He told me something I have not heard before. It appears that Godfrey Palliser had intended this strip of the property for Appleby. It could be converted into money without any detriment to the rest, you see.”
“Hopkins always complained that Dane Cop was not worth the rent, but it will bring you in a good revenue now,” said the girl. “Still, doesn’t that seem a little hard upon the man who has lost it?”
Tony flicked the horse with the whip. “The land was Godfrey Palliser’s, and he did what he thought was right with it.”
“I almost fancy he would not have left it to you if you had only had a little more faith in your friend.”
Tony turned his head away. “You mean if I had defended Bernard when Godfrey sent for me? Still, I would like you to believe that if he had left the land to Bernard it would have pleased me.”
“Of course! Could you have urged nothing in his favor, Tony?”
“No,” said Tony, and Violet noticed how his fingers tightened on the reins. “Nothing whatever. I don’t want to remember that night. What took place then hurt me.”
“Have you ever heard from Appleby?”