"I had to go to London to learn that Hillside Farm is for sale."
"For sale, Ralph?"
"So Sir John Liskeard told me. I warrant that nobody in St. Goram knows."
"Are you very sorry?" she questioned.
"Not a bit. The squire squeezed his tenants for all they were worth, and now the money-lenders are squeezing him. It's only poetic justice, after all."
"Yet surely he is to be pitied?"
"Well, yes. Every man is to be pitied who fools away his money on the Turf and on other questionable pursuits, and yet when the pinch comes you cannot help saying it serves him right."
"But nobody suffers alone, Ralph."
"I know that," he answered, the colour mounting suddenly to his cheeks. "But as far as his son Geoffrey is concerned, it may do him good not to have unlimited cash."
"I was not thinking of Geoffrey. I was thinking of Miss Dorothy."