“Well, you can take me in,” to the groom. “I’ll go by the gap.”
The groom demurred timidly; the grey might leap at the gap. But the Squire was obstinate, and the old mare, who knew he was blind as well as any man upon the place, and knew, too, when she could indulge in a frolic and when not, bore, him out delicately, stepping over the thorn-stubs as if she walked on eggs.
He was at the door in the act of dismounting when Clement appeared. “D’you want me?” the old man asked bluntly.’
“If you please, sir,” Clement answered. He had walked all the way from Aldersbury, having much to think of and one question which lay heavy on his mind. That was—how would it be with him when he walked back?
“Then come in.” And feeling for the door-post with his hand, the Squire entered the house and turned with the certainty of long practice into the dining-room. He walked to the table as firmly as if he could see, and touching it with one hand he drew up with the other his chair. He sat down. “You’d best sit,” he said grudgingly. “I can’t see, but you can. Find a chair.”
“My father has sent me with the money,” Clement explained. “I have a cheque here and the necessary papers. He would have come himself, sir, to renew his thanks for aid as timely as it was generous and—and necessary. But”—Clement boggled a little over the considered phrase, he was nervous and his voice betrayed it—“he thought—I was to say——”
“It’s all there?”
“Yes, sir, principal and interest.”
“Have you drawn a receipt?”
“Yes, sir, I’ve brought one with me. But if you would prefer that it should be paid to Mr. Welsh—my father thought that that might be so?”