‘Don’t you sometimes forget this vow of yours to my mother?’
‘No, I wear a reminder.’
‘What is that like?’
De Stancy held up his left hand, on the third finger of which appeared an iron ring.
Dare surveyed it, saying, ‘Yes, I have seen that before, though I never knew why you wore it. Well, I wear a reminder also, but of a different sort.’
He threw open his shirt-front, and revealed tattooed on his breast the letters DE STANCY; the same marks which Havill had seen in the bedroom by the light of the moon.
The captain rather winced at the sight. ‘Well, well,’ he said hastily, ‘that’s enough.... Now, at any rate, you understand my objection to know Miss Power.’
‘But, captain,’ said the lad coaxingly, as he fastened his shirt; ‘you forget me and the good you may do me by marrying? Surely that’s a sufficient reason for a change of sentiment. This inexperienced sweet creature owns the castle and estate which bears your name, even to the furniture and pictures. She is the possessor of at least forty thousand a year—how much more I cannot say—while, buried here in Outer Wessex, she lives at the rate of twelve hundred in her simplicity.’
‘It is very good of you to set this before me. But I prefer to go on as I am going.’
‘Well, I won’t bore you any more with her to-day. A monk in regimentals!—‘tis strange.’ Dare arose and was about to open the door, when, looking through the window, Captain De Stancy said, ‘Stop.’ He had perceived his father, Sir William De Stancy, walking among the tombstones without.