"By the way," George went on, "I am expecting a visitor, my ward,
young Arthur Heigham, who is just back from India. He will be twenty-
five in a few days, when he comes of age, and is coming down to settle
up. The fact is, that ten thousand of his money is on the Jotley
property, and both Bellamy and myself are anxious that it should stop
there for the present, as if the mortgage were called in it might be
awkward."

"Is he well off?"

"Comfortably; about a thousand a year; comes of an old family too.
Bellamy and I knew his father, Captain Heigham, slightly, when we were
in business. His wife, by the way, was a distant cousin of ours. They
are both dead now; the captain was wiped out at Inkerman, and, for
some unknown reason, left me the young gentleman's sole guardian and
joint trustee with a London lawyer, a certain Mr. Borley. I have never
seen him yet--my ward, I mean--he has always been at Eton, or
Cambridge, or in India, or somewhere."

Here Philip began to manifest signs of considerable uneasiness, the
cause of which was sufficiently apparent; for, whilst they were
talking, a very large and savage-looking animal of the sheep-dog order
had emerged from the house, and was following him up and down,
growling in a low and ominous undertone, its nose being the while
glued to his calves as they alternately presented themselves in his
line of vision.

"Would you mind calling off this animal, George?" he said at length.
"He does not look amiable."