"Still, I am completely in the dark," he persisted.
"Then you haven't much perception," the lawyer growled. "The Honorable Oliver Britton is dead, and he has left you Britton Hall!"
Rex sprang upright on the rock in his astonishment; then laughed shortly, as he resumed his seat, stuffing nervously at his pipe.
"That won't go down," he observed sardonically. "I remember what my uncle said to me that last night in Sussex."
Ainsworth leaned out of the packs in the middle of the canoe, speaking in an eager, intense voice.
"Can I read testaments?" he asked. "Do I know law?"
"As none other in England," Rex replied softly.
"Then believe what I have told you," the lawyer said. "I play with no one, and I wish no one to play with me. Your uncle died last month of pneumonia. Britton Hall is willed to you!"
Rex thrust a muscle-wrapped arm over the rock. "Come up," he said, "and tell me all about it. Tell me what they are doing at home. How's Trascott and–and the old place?" His eyes were alight because the sea-girt downs of Sussex still had a spell for him.
Ainsworth stood up carefully in the centre of the Peterborough while his men balanced it against the granite with flattened paddles. He put the toe of one scarred cruiser in a crack of the perpendicular wall, and grasping the outstretched hand, he was lifted to a seat beside Britton.