'That 'ere 'arth-stone, sir: Some idiot must have put a scaffold pole on
it and cracked it right down the middle, and it's thick enough you'd
think to stand hanythink.' Geoffrey was silent for quite a minute, and
then said in a constrained voice and with much gentler manner:

'Tell your people that I am not going on with the work in the hall at
present. I want to leave it as it is for a while longer.'

'All right sir. I'll send up a few of our chaps to take away these poles
and lime bags and tidy the place up a bit.'

'No! No!' said Geoffrey, 'leave them where they are. I shall send and
tell you when you are to get on with the work.' So the foreman went
away, and his comment to his master was:

'I'd send in the bill, sir, for the work already done. 'Pears to me that
money's a little shaky in that quarter.'

Once or twice Delandre tried to stop Brent on the road, and, at last,
finding that he could not attain his object rode after the carriage,
calling out:

'What has become of my sister, your wife?' Geoffrey lashed his horses
into a gallop, and the other, seeing from his white face and from his
wife's collapse almost into a faint that his object was attained, rode
away with a scowl and a laugh.

That night when Geoffrey went into the hall he passed over to the great
fireplace, and all at once started back with a smothered cry. Then with
an effort he pulled himself together and went away, returning with a