d Healthy Life Assurance Company, in which he held some shares, and
at which he was employed as a clerk. It would of course be necessary
that he should either resign his place or go back to his duties. That
the Squire of Llanfeare should be a clerk at the Sick and Healthy
would be an anomaly. Could he really be in possession of his rents,
the Sick and Healthy would of course see no more of him; but were
he to throw up his position and then to lose Llanfeare, how sad,
how terrible, how cruel would be his fate! But yet something must
be done. In these circumstances he wrote a letter to the manager,
detailing all the circumstances with a near approach to the truth,
keeping back only the one little circumstance that he himself was
acquainted with the whereabouts of the missing will.

"It may turn up at any moment," he explained to the manager, "so
that my position as owner of the property is altogether insecure. I
feel this so thoroughly that were I forced at the present to choose
between the two I should keep my clerkship in the office; but as the
condition of things is so extraordinary, perhaps the directors will
allow me six months in which to come to a decision, during which I
may hold my place, without, of course, drawing any salary."

Surely, he thought, he could decide on something before the six
months should be over. Either he would have destroyed the will, or
have sunk the book beneath the waves, or have resolved to do that
magnanimous deed which it was still within his power to achieve. The
only one thing not possible would be for him to leave Llanfeare and
take himself up to the delights of London while the document was yet
hidden within the volume.

"I suppose sir, you don't know yet as to what your plans are going
to be?" This was said by Mrs Griffith as soon as she made her way
into the book-room after a somewhat imperious knocking at the door.
Hitherto there had been but little communication between Cousin Henry
and his servants since the death of the old Squire. Mrs Griffith
had given him warning that she would leave his service, and he had
somewhat angrily told her that she might go as soon as it pleased
her. Since that she had come to him once daily for his orders, and
those orders had certainly been very simple. He had revelled in no
luxuries of the table or the cellar since the keys of the house had
been committed to his charge. She had been told to provide him with
simple food, and with food she had