"It might be," he said.

"Still, as you know, the Carnaby affairs are involved, and there is a possibility of contesting his claim under the somewhat extravagant will.

It is not altogether improbable that I shall find means of persuading him to stay here with his cows and pigs." Deringham slightly accentuated part of the sentence, and again a faint tinge of colour crept into the face of the girl and vindictiveness into her eyes, for she understood him.

The man who had on his deathbed bequeathed Carnaby to his grandson had driven out the young man's father years ago, and approaching dissolution had possibly somewhat clouded his faculties when he made the will.

Deringham, who had married into the Alton family, and figured as a legatee, was, with the exception of the disinherited, the nearest of kin, and it had been generally expected that Carnaby would fall to his daughter; but perhaps in an endeavour to treat both sides fairly, its dying owner had, in the face of his lawyer's protests, inserted one clause which, for financial reasons, rendered a second union between the houses of Alton and Deringham distinctly advisable.