th the dangerous pinnacle on the Boisingham
Church, he took the note, untied the fat pony, and ambled off to
Honham, leaving the lawyer alone. As soon as he was gone, Mr. Quest
threw himself back in his chair--an old oak one, by-the-way, for he
had a very pretty taste in old oak and a positive mania for collecting
it--and plunged into a brown study.

Presently he leant forward, unlocked the top drawer of his writing
table, and extracted from it a letter addressed to himself which he
had received that very morning. It was from the principals of the
great banking firm of Cossey and Son, and dated from their head office
in Mincing lane. This letter ran as follows:

"Private and confidential.

"Dear Sir,--

"We have considered your report as to the extensive mortgages which
we hold upon the Honham Castle estates, and have allowed due
weight to your arguments as to the advisability of allowing Mr. de
la Molle time to give things a chance of righting. But we must
tell you that we can see no prospect of any such solution of the
matter, at any rate for some years to come. All the information
that we are able to gather points to a further decrease in the
value of the land rather than to a recovery. The interest on the
mortgages in question is moreover a year in arrear, probably owing
to the non-receipt of rents by Mr. de la Molle. Under these
circumstances, much as it grieves us to take action against Mr. de
la Molle, with whose family we have had dealings for five
generations, we can see no alternative to foreclosure, and hereby
instruct you to take the necessary preliminary steps to bring it
about in the usual manner. We are, presuming that Mr. de la Molle
is not in a position to pay off the mortgages, quite aware of the
risks of a forced sale, and shall not be astonished if, in the
present unprecedented condition of the land market, such a sale
should result in a loss, although the sum recoverable does not
amount to half the valuation of the estates, which was undertaken
at our instance about twenty years ago on the occasion of the
first advance. The only alternative, however, would be for us to
enter into possession of the property or to buy it in. But this
would be a course totally inconsistent with the usual practice of
the bank, and what is more, our confidence in the stability of
landed property is so utterly shattered by our recent experienc