"Are you staying in Priorsford?" she asked gently.
"I'm at the Temperance Hotel for a few days. I—the fact is, I haven't been well. I had to take a rest, so I came back here—after thirty years."
"Have you really been away for thirty years? Great-aunt Alison came to The Rigs first about thirty years ago. Do you, by any chance, know our landlord in London? Mr. Peter Reid is his name."
"I know him."
"He's frightfully rich, they say. I don't suppose you know him well enough to ask him not to sell The Rigs? It can't make much difference to him, though it means so much to us. Is he old, our landlord?"
"A man in his prime," said Peter Reid.
"That's pretty old, isn't it?" said Jean—"about sixty, I think. Of course," hastily, "sixty isn't really old. When I'm sixty—if I'm spared—I expect I shall feel myself good for another twenty years."
"I thought I was," said Peter Reid, "until I broke down."
"Oh, but a rest at Priorsford will put you all right."
Could he afford a holiday? she wondered. Even temperance hotels were rather expensive when you hadn't much money. Would it be very rash and impulsive to ask him to stay at The Rigs?