talk with his agent, Westboro'--the map of the
district before him--enquired what had ever been done with the property
known as The Dials, and into whose hands the old place had fallen. It
seemed that it had been let for some months to a foreigner, a widow,
who lived there, and alone.

Westboro' considered the farms and forests, as they lay mapped out
before him, at the extreme foot of the castle's parks. It was a little
square of some fifty acres by itself; it had never interested him
before.

How long did the lease run on? Did the agent know? He believed for
another year.

The Duke gave instructions to have the property looked into, with a
view to purchase. And as the man put up his papers, he vouchsafed to
his employer:

"The present tenant is very exclusive; she sees nobody, has never, I
believe, even been to the Abbey. An old gardener who has been kept on
says the servants are all foreign."

The Duke gave only a tepid interest to the information which would have
passed entirely from his mind had it not been for his next meeting with
Jimmy Bulstrode.

As much to shake off the impression his last talk with the Duchess had
left on his mind, as to prolong his exercise, Jimmy had gone down out
of the garden and across the place on foot over the rough winter fields
with their rimy furrows and their barren floors. As he made his way
towards the bottom hedge, looking for a stile he knew would be there a
little farther on, cutting an entrance out through the thorn to the
road, he met Westboro', like himself, on foot, and with his hand upon
the stile. The presence of the Duke where Bulstrode knew he was least
thought to be, and where he was now sadly sure he was not opportune,
made Jimmy stop short, troubled, and, not for a moment thinking that
the fact of his being there _himself_ was singular, he made his way
determinedly through the stile. As he greeted his friend, his own
demeanor was decidedly one which said: "Don't go on in that direction,
follow rather out of the turnstile with _me_." And he led his friend
rather brusquely down the bank, hitching his arm in Westboro's, forced
him along with him into the road.

"I ran down here to look over these meadows," said Westboro.' "You
seem yourself, in a way, to be pacing the land off!"

"Oh, I _love_ cross-country walking," said Bulstrode warmly.

"You must," smiled the Duke, "to have cut off into those barren fields.
Were you lost?" Westboro' stopped