When Sir Nigel's wife had arrived twelve years ago as the new Lady Anstruthers, the story that she herself "had money" had been verified by her fine clothes and her way of handing out sovereigns in cases where the rest of the gentry, if they gave at all, would have bestowed tea and flannel or shillings.

There had been for a few months a period of unheard of well-being in Stornham village; everyone remembered the hundred pounds the bride had given to poor Wilson when his place had burned down, but the village had of course learned, by its occult means, that Sir Nigel and the Dowager had been angry and that there had been a quarrel.

Afterwards her ladyship had been dangerously ill, the baby had been born a hunchback, and a year had passed before its mother had been seen again.

Since then she had been a changed creature; she had lost her looks and seemed to care for nothing but the child.

Stornham village saw next to nothing of her, and it certainly was not she who had the dispensing of her fortune.