ell have saved himself
both. Peter stood in the library window, looking across the grand old
park, and heard, apparently unmoved, that all those rich acres and
woodlands and well-stocked waters and preserves would pass from him to
his brother, if he chose to remain obdurate and marry the poor
governess, instead of the lady of high lineage his uncle had already
selected for him.

What he said was, "Do you wish me also to lose my career and leave the
Blues?"

For the moment his uncle had been too angry to reply. "Get out," he
had said roughly. "You can't be yourself this morning. I will not
believe you seriously contemplate losing anything."

Peter had turned back from the window, and stood a moment looking
squarely into his uncle's face. "I am going to marry Joan," he said,
"and as you have brought me up to be perfectly useless, except in a
crack regiment, I only want to know if you will continue my allowance
long enough to give me time to find out what I can be useful at," then
he had walked quietly out of the room.

And Richard Carew, distrusting his own ears and far more upset than he
would ever for a moment admit, remembered that he had seen just that
look on the face of Peter's mother when he had had to break to her
that her husband had been killed in the hunting-field--a look of
desperate finality and unswerving resolve. Within the year he had
stood beside her grave also, and taken the two baby boys home to his
own house.

Then Geoffrey had come to him, and because he was clever and
unscrupulous he fanned the flame easily to white-heat. Finally the
uncle had decreed, "I will give him a week to think it over, and in
the event of his remaining obdurate I will offer him one thousand a
year for five years, and at the end of that time the allowance to be
renewed or decreased, or stopped, according to my pleasure."

At the end of the week Peter's reply was "I am going to marry Joan on
the 25th by special licence, in London. If you will not receive us
together, I should be glad if my man might pack my clothes and bring
them to me, with a few other belongings."

And Richard Carew's answer to that had been a lawyer's letter,
politely enquiring of Captain Peter Fourtenay-Carew to what address he
wished the allowance sent, which was to be his for five years. Peter,
not yet too angry to be cautious, asked if the five thousand pounds
might be invested for him in entirety, and made arrangements at once
to exchange into