For a time he sat with his brows knitted and his mouth set. He would have
liked to be generous, but he loved the girl and could not force himself
to run the risk of losing her. Nevertheless, he honestly tried, and
afterwards remembered with strange distinctness the soft rattle of the
electric fan and the dull roll of traffic that throbbed in the quiet room
while he fought the losing fight. The sunbeam the waiter had shut out
crept on to another window and shone on the fluted pillars before he got
up. His face was very hard, for he had chosen his line and knew he must
take it without doubt or pity.

Going down to the hall, he called up Gerald's branch bank. A clerk who
was working late replied that Mr. Osborn had gone.

"I know," said Thorn, giving his name. "Make a note to tell him he need
not call on me to-morrow. I find I am unable to do what he requires."

"Very well," said the clerk. "I'll give him the message in the morning."

Thorn rang the bell and, leaving the box, asked for a railway guide.
There was nothing to be gained by stopping in London and he looked up the
best train for the north.

CHAPTER VII

GERALD'S RETURN

Thorn went home and waited, confident that Osborn would presently send
for him. The estate was heavily mortgaged, Osborn had no rich friends,
and when the blow fell would look to Thorn for the aid nobody else could
give. In the meantime, Osborn, enjoying a short relief from financial
strain, squandered in personal extravagance part of the sum he had
borrowed, and then set drainers, carpenters, and builders to work. He
liked spending and now tried to persuade himself that the money he was
laying out would give him some return. It ought to last until he had
finished the renovations his tenants demanded, and although difficulties
might arise afterwards, he would wait until they did. Indeed, his wife
and daughter found him better humored than he had been for long.

Then, one evening when the hay was harvested and the corn was ripening,
his satisfaction was rudely banished. Grace had gone to the lodge with a
message and stopped for a few minutes by the gate. The evening was calm
and one side of the placid tarn glittered in the light; the other was
dark, and soft blue shadows covered the fells behind. She heard the
languid splash of ripples on the stones and the murmur of a beck in a
distant ghyll. A strange restful tranquillity brooded over the dale.

Grace felt the calm soothing,