Mr. Dick--I daresay you have heard."

"I've heard nothing."

"Dead--killed in the war."

"Dead! Well, to be sure."

"Yes, poor boy--killed."

"Dear, dear!" murmured Mr. Trimmer, growing meditative.

Mrs. Ripon knew what he was thinking--or imagined that she did. There was
no one now to inherit Herresford's money but Mrs. Swinton, and she
believed that Trimmer was wondering how much of it he would get for
himself; for it was a popular delusion below stairs that Mr. Trimmer had
mesmerized his master into making a will in his favor, leaving him
everything.

"How did Mr. Dick get away?" asked Mr. Trimmer. "Surely, his creditors
wouldn't let him go."

"Ah, now you have touched the sore point, Mr. Trimmer. The poor young man
swindled--yes, swindled the bank, forged checks in his grandfather's
name."

Mr. Trimmer allowed some human expression to creep into his stone face.
He puckered his brows, and his usually marble-smooth forehead showed
unexpected wrinkles.

"It was the very last thing we'd have believed, Mr. Trimmer; it was for
seven thousand dollars."

"Tut, tut!" exclaimed Mr. Trimmer, sorrowfully. "That comes of my going
away. I ought to have locked up the check-book. I suppose the young man
came here to see his grandfather and stole the checks."

"No, he never came--at least only once, and just for a moment. Then, his
grandfather was so insulting that he only stayed a few minutes. That was
when he came to say good-bye. But Mrs. Swinton came, trying to get money
for the boy."

"I must see Mr. Herresford about this." Trimmer walked mechanically
upstairs to the former bedroom, quite forgetting that his master would
not be there. He came out again with a short, sharp exclamation of anger,
and at last found the old man in the turret room.

Herresford was reading a long deed left by his lawyer, and on a chair by
his bedside was a pile of documents.

"Good morning, sir," said Trimmer, in exactly the same tone as always
during the last forty years, and he cast his eye around the untidy room.

"Oh, it's you? Back again, eh?" grunted the miser. "About time, too! How
long is it since valets have taken to doing the grand tour, and taking
three months' holiday without leave of their masters?"

"I gave myself leave, sir," replied Trimmer, nonchalantly.

"And what right have you to take holidays without my permission?"

"You discharged me, sir--but I thought better of it."

A grunt was the only answer to thi