Rupert was leaning forward on the settle, his elbow on his knee, his eye fixed on old Canham.
"How could he do that?" he asked after a pause. "How could any one do it?"
"It's not for us to say how, Master Rupert. If anybody in these parts could have said, maybe you'd have been in it long before this. That there stranger is a cute 'un, I know. White beards always is a sign of wisdom."
Rupert laughed. "Look here, Mark. It is no good going over that ground again. I have heard about my 'rights' until I am tired. The subject vexes me; it makes me cross from its very hopelessness. I wish I had been born without rights."
"This stranger, when he called you the heir of Trevlyn Hold, and I told him you were not the heir, said I was right; you were not the heir, but the owner," persisted old Canham.
"Then he knew nothing about it," returned Rupert. "It's impossible that Chattaway can be put out of Trevlyn Hold."
"Master Rupert, there has always been a feeling upon me that he will be put out of it," resumed old Canham. "He came to it by wrong, and wrong never lasts to the end without being righted. Who knows that the same feeling ain't on Chattaway? He turned the colour o' my Sunday smock when I told him of this stranger's having been here and what he'd said."
"Did you tell him?" quickly cried Rupert.
"I did, sir. I didn't mean to, but it come out incautious-like. I called you the young heir to his face, and excused myself by saying the stranger had been calling you so, and I spoke out the same without thought. Then he wanted to know what stranger, and all about him. It was when Madam was resting here after the accident. Chattaway rode by and saw her, and got off his horse: it was the first he knew of the accident. If what I said didn't frighten him, I never had a day's rheumatiz in my life. His face went as white as Madam's."
"Chattaway go white!" scoffed Rupert. "What next? I tell you what it is, Mark; you fancy things. Aunt Edith may have been white; she often is; but not he. Chattaway knows that Trevlyn Hold is his, safe and sure. Nothing can take it from him—unless Squire Trevlyn came to life again, and made a fresh will. He's not likely to do that, Mark."