"Who are the owners?" Allan asked.
"A gentleman of the name of Stimpson be the owner, a distant relative of the Elmacotts by marriage. I do understand, out in Canada he be, born and bred there and never clapped eyes on the place, nor ever likely to. I've got to get the best price I can for the place, seeing he be my client, and the price I've asked Mr. Van Norden——" Dalabey paused. He looked at Allan, he had no great opinion of Allan. "Queer and dreamy like," Mr. Dalabey thought, "not businesslike, one of they sort who goes through the world mooning——"
"And the price?" Allan asked.
"Er—thirty thousand pounds," said Dalabey.
"It's a great deal of money," Allan said, he said it more for the sake of saying something than for any other reason. Had Dalabey said fifty thousand pounds, he would probably have said the same thing.
"Open to an offer I be, but the offer's got to come quick and soon, or Mr. Van Norden——"
"I know, I know!" Allan stood and stared out over the garden. He wondered at its strange fascination for him. Of course it had only been a dream, yet a dream so strangely real, so clear cut, so logical and why—why should it have come to him here in this old garden—why?
Mr. Dalabey was staring at him.
"Gone to sleep he hev seemingly."
"Thirty thousand, sir, and that be no more than forty pounds an acre for good Sussex land by my reckoning, to say nothing of the old house and the buildings and a dozen cottages in the village wi' the alehouse, the Elmacott Arms."