"That the smuggling trade was yours: and that the fact accounts for your having been in the Keep that night--for Harry's being there yesterday. Trust me as you have trusted your son, Uncle James: it shall be ever sacred. I will sympathise with you as he has done: am I not a Castlemaine?"
One rapid debate in his mind, and then the Master of Greylands pointed to his garden and led the way to the nearest bench there: the selfsame bench that George had sat on to whisper his love-vows to Ethel. He was about to disclose all to his new-found nephew, to whom his esteem and admiration had before been drawn as George North; whom he already liked, nay loved, by one of those subtle instincts rarely to be accounted for. Unless he made a clean breast of all things, the fate of Anthony must in some particulars still remain dark.
He first of all satisfied George upon the one point which has already been declared to the reader: they were the smugglers, the Castlemaines, in conjunction with the originator and active man, Teague: explaining to him how it was that he had been induced to join himself to the practices. And then he went on to other matters.
George Castlemaine sat by his side in the dusky night, and listened to the tale. To more than he had dared to ask, or hope for, or even to think of that eventful evening. For Mr. Castlemaine entered upon the question of the estate: speaking at first abruptly.
"Greylands' Rest is Anthony's," said he.
"Anthony's!"
"Yes. Or rather yours, now Anthony is gone; but it was his when he came over. It is necessary for me to tell you this at first: one part of the story involves another. My father knew nothing of the smuggling; never had an idea of it; and the money that I gained by it I had to invest quietly from time to time through a London agent; so that he, and others, should not know I possessed it. A few weeks before my father died, he called me to him one morning to talk about the property----"
"Did he make a will?----I beg your pardon for my interruption, Uncle James," hastily added the young man in apology for what now struck him for rudeness.
"No, he did not make a will. He never made one. Your grandfather was one of those men who shrink from making a will--there are many such in the world. It was less necessary in his case to make one than it is in some cases--at least he deemed it so. Of his available means, Basil had received his share, I had received mine, Peter had had his; all, years before. Nothing, save the estate, was left to will away. I see what you are wondering at, George--that out of twelve or thirteen hundred a year--for that is about what the estate brings in--your grandfather should have been able to live here so liberally and make the show we did: but during his lifetime he enjoyed nearly as much more from a relative of my mother's, which source of income went back at his death. Perhaps you know this. My father began that morning to talk to me--'When do you expect Basil, James?' he asked abruptly: and the question unutterably astonished me, for we had not heard from Basil at all, and did not expect him. 'He will come,' said my father; 'he will come. Basil will know that I must be drawing near my end, and he will come over to be ready to take possession here.' 'Leave Greylands' Rest for me, father,' I burst out--for I had been hoping all along that it would be mine after him: I presume you see for why?"
But George did not see: and said so.