ommodation under the light tower had been enlarged for the new
requirements of his matrimonial status. And so Monsieur the Captain
(in Rene's inveterate outlandish phraseology) found his liberty of
action complete. Both the women's curiosity was allayed, and all
tendency to prying into the young stranger's mysterious purposes amid
their seclusion condemned beforehand, by Rene's statement: that
Monsieur the Captain was a trusted friend of the master--one indeed
(and here the informant thought fit to stretch a point, if but
slightly) to whom the Lord of Pulwick was indebted, in bygone days,
for life and freedom.

Except when weather-bound, a state of things which at that time of
year occurred not unfrequently, Rene journeyed daily as far as the
Hall, ostensibly to report progress and take possible orders, but
really to gratify himself with the knowledge that all was well with
the master.

About the breakfast hour, upon this 15th of March, as Sir Adrian was
discussing with the bailiff sundry matters of importance to the
estate, a tap came to the door, which he recognised at once as the
Frenchman's own long accustomed mode of self-announcement.

Since he had assumed the reins of government, the whilom recluse had
discovered that the management of such a wide property was indeed no
sinecure; and moreover--as his brother, who certainly understood such
matters in a thoroughly practical manner, had warned him--that a
person of his own philosophical, over-benevolent and abstracted turn
of mind, was singularly ill-fitted for the task. But a strong sense of
duty and a determination to act by it will carry a man a long way. He
had little time for dreaming and this was perhaps a providential
dispensation, for Sir Adrian's musings had now lost much of the grave
placidity born of his long, peaceful residence in his Thelema of
Scarthey. The task was long and arduous; on sundry occasions he was
forced to consult his predecessor on the arcana of landed estate
government, which he did with much simplicity, thereby giving Mr.
Landale, not only inwardly mocking satisfaction, but several
opportunities for the display of his self-effacing loyalty and
superior capacities.

The business of this day was of sufficiently grave moment to make
interruption unwelcome--being nothing less than requests from a number
of tenants to the "Good Sir Adrian," "the real master come to his own
again"--for a substantial reduction of rent; a step towards whi