"I don't much think you will," said the doctor.
Leo continued to nurse his leg. Dick, who had little thought about him, had thrown his arms around Sara's waist, and was whispering to her. Both the lads loved Sara. When they had arrived little strangers from the West Indies, new to the doctor's house and its inmates, new to everything else, they had taken wonderfully to Sara, and she to them. You do not need to be told that they were the lads whom poor Richard Davenal was to have escorted over; and when they came they brought his effects with them.
[CHAPTER VIII.]
A TACIT BARGAIN.
Meanwhile Mr. Oswald Cray had dined at his rustic inn, the "Apple Tree," and was on his way to pay an evening visit at Dr. Davenal's. In passing along New Street he encountered his half-brother, turning hastily out of his lodgings.
"Were you coming in, Oswald?" asked Marcus, as they shook hands. "I heard you were down."
"Not now," replied Oswald. "I am going on to Dr. Davenal's, and I go up again by the night train. My visit here today was to Lady Oswald. We are going to take a strip of her grounds for sheds, and she does not like it."
"Not like it!" echoed Mark. "It's worse than that. You should have seen the way she was in this afternoon. It won't hurt the grounds."
"Not at all. But she cannot be brought to see that it will not. In point of fact, the sound of it is worse than the reality will be. It does sound ill, I confess,--railway-sheds upon one's grounds! I was in hopes of being the first to break the news to her: so much lies in the telling of a thing; in the impression first imparted."
"She said this afternoon that it all lay with you. That you could spare her grounds if you would."