"What! Here is a man with a palace waiting to receive him--and he is
only going to stop one clear day in it!"

"I am not going to stop in it at all, Sir Patrick--I am going to stay
with the steward. I'm only wanted to be present to-morrow at a dinner
to my tenants--and, when that's over, there's nothing in the world to
prevent my coming back here. The steward himself told me so in his last
letter."

"Oh, if the steward told you so, of course there is nothing more to be
said!"

"Don't object to my coming back! pray don't, Sir Patrick! I'll promise
to live in my new house when I have got Blanche to live in it with me.
If you won't mind, I'll go and tell her at once that it all belongs to
her as well as to me."

"Gently! gently! you talk as if you were married to her already!"

"It's as good as done, Sir! Where's the difficulty in the way now?"

As he asked the question the shadow of some third person, advancing
from the side of the summer-house, was thrown forward on the open sunlit
space at the top of the steps. In a moment more the shadow was followed
by the substance--in the shape of a groom in his riding livery. The man
was plainly a stranger to the place. He started, and touched his hat,
when he saw the two gentlemen in the summer-house.

"What do you want?" asked Sir Patrick