"Not very, I believe. I am about to try what a month or two's absence will do for me."
"And leave us to old Brown!--that will be a nice go!" exclaimed Roland in blank dismay. "But I may not have to stay," he added more brightly, as recollection returned to him "Vincent Yorke has telegraphed for me, sir, and I and Mr. Greatorex think that he is about to appoint me his bailiff."
A smile crossed the haggard face of Bede. "I wish you success in it," he kindly said.
"Thank you, sir. And I'm sure I wish you and Mrs. Greatorex heaps of pleasure, and I heartily hope you'll come home strong. Oh! and, Mr. Bede--Carrick's coming back."
Bede nodded in answer. Greatorex and Greatorex knew more of the matter than Roland, since it was they who had intimated to the peer that the coast was now sufficiently clear for him.
Roland leaped into a cab, and was taken to Mr. Channing's. He waited in the empty dining-room; and when Annabel came to him, told her hurriedly of what had happened. The cab was waiting at the door, Roland was eager, and her pale cheeks grew rosy with blushes as he talked and held her hands.
"It can't be for anything else, you know, Annabel. He is going to instal me off-hand for certain, or else he would have written and not telegraphed: perhaps the new bailiff (if he did appoint one) has turned out to be no good. There'll be a pretty cottage, I daresay, its walls all covered with roses and lilies, with two hundred a year; and we shall be as happy as the day's long. You'll not mind trying it, will you?"
No, Annabel whispered, the cheeks deepening to crimson, she would not mind trying it. "I think--I think, Roland," she added, bending down her pretty face, "that I might have a pupil if I liked; and be well paid for her."
"That's jolly," said Roland. "We might do, with that, if Dick only offered me one hundred. He is uncommonly close-fisted. There'd be a house free, and no end of fruit and garden-stuff; and living in the country is very cheap."
"It is Jane Greatorex."