Here the brandy and soda was brought in, which gave him time to think.
'I don't know exactly. Two brutes have got hold of me. I should fancy they could all be choked off with 8000 pounds—say 9000 pounds.'
'14,000 pounds—it will be a heavy charge on the estate.'
'But I shall be off it. What's more, father, if Frank comes home, and gets married, and plays the good boy and all that kind of thing, don't let him get it into his head that I am jealous of him, or that he has supplanted me. Frank is a fine chap. Tell him it was my proposal; and I hope he'll be a better son to you than I have been. Well, is it a bargain, father?'
The old man thought for some time, and at length said,
'Yes.'
'Well, then, there's another thing. Jinny's stumbled against something and got a black eye. Let's get her out of the house without the servants seeing her—this evening, after dusk. And I'll meet you any day you like at Shaen and Maskell's.'
This, then, was how it came about that Commander Francis Holford King, R.N., was summoned home from the West Indies, where he had been with his ship, the Hellespont. He was grave for his years; and he was more manly in figure, somehow, and certainly browner of face, than when we last saw him at Bellagio, on Lake Como; but as he sailed past the Eddystone Light and entered the smooth waters of Plymouth Sound, there was something within him that told him his heart had not quite forgotten all its old memories.