Lavendar's blunt refusal, except under certain conditions, to announce to Mrs. Prettyman her coming ejection from the cottage at Wittisham, was unprofessional enough, as he himself felt; but it was final and categorical. Conveying as it did a sort of tacit remonstrance, this refusal had an unfortunate effect, for it only served to rouse Mrs. de Tracy's formidable obstinacy. She had seized upon one point only in their numberless and wearisome discussions of the matter: Mrs. Prettyman had no legal claim upon Stoke Revel. To give her compensation for the plum tree would be to allow that she had; to create a precedent highly dangerous under the circumstances. How could one refuse to other old women or old men leaving their cottages what one had weakly granted to her? The demands would be unceasing, the trouble endless. So arguing, Mrs. de Tracy soon brought herself to a state of determination bordering on a sort of mania. She was old, and in exaggerated harshness her life was retreating as it were into its last stronghold, at bay.

As good as her word, for she had vowed she would warn Mrs. Prettyman herself, and she was never one to procrastinate, the lady of the Manor proceeded to plan her visit to Wittisham. She had not crossed the river for years. Wittisham, one of the loveliest villages in England, perhaps, though little known, was a thorn in her side, as it would have been in that of any other landlord with empty pockets.

What you could not deal with to your own advantage, it was better to ignore, and on this autocratic principle, Mrs. de Tracy had left Wittisham to itself.

But now the boat carried her there, alone and fierce--_thrawn_, as the Scotch say--bent upon a course of conduct that she knew would hold her up to the hatred of every right-thinking person of her acquaintance, and bitterly triumphant in the knowledge. The meanness of her errand never struck her. On the contrary, she would have argued it was one well worthy of her, a part of the scheme in the consummation of which she had spent her married life and her whole indomitable energy, losing actually her own identity in the process, and becoming an inexorable machine. That scheme was the holding together of Stoke Revel for the de Tracys, the maintenance of family dignity and power, the pre-eminence of a race that had always ruled. The river beneath her, carrying her to the fulfilment of her duty, the noble river, widening to the sea, subject to its tides and made turbulent by its storms, typified to Mrs. de Tracy only the greatness of Stoke Revel. From its banks the de Tracys had sent out, generation after generation, men who had commanded fleets, who had upheld the national honour upon the farthest seas, very often at the cost of life. There was no sacrifice of herself at which Mrs. de Tracy would have hesitated in upholding this ideal, no sacrifice of others, either. What was Lizzie Prettyman in comparison? A bag of old bones, fit for nothing but the workhouse!

"A little faster, William," said the widow, sitting upright in the stern, and William the footman bent to his oars, the beads of perspiration standing on his brow. When Mrs. de Tracy stepped out upon the pier, she had to be reminded where the Prettyman cottage was.

"You'll know it by the plum tree, ma'am," said William respectfully, "everybody does."

It was not far off on the river side. The tide had ebbed and left a stretch of muddy foreshore in front of it, where the rotting poles for hanging the fishing nets out to dry stood gauntly up. Mrs. de Tracy approached the steps, which merged into the flagged path before the door, and paused to survey the property she intended to part with. She had no eye for the picturesque. A few white petals from the blossoming plum tree, scattered by the breeze, fell upon her black bonnet and shoulders. A faint scent of honey came from it and the hum of bees, for the day was warm. The tumble-down condition of the cottage engaged Mrs. de Tracy's attention.

"And for this," she thought scornfully, "a man will give hundreds of pounds! There's truth in the adage that a fool and his money are soon parted!"

She mounted the steps that led up to the patch of garden, her keen, cold eyes everywhere at once. "A cat can't sneeze without she 'ears 'im!" her villagers at Stoke Revel were wont to say, disappearing into their houses as rabbits into their burrows at sight of a terrier.

Old Elizabeth Prettyman stood at her door, and it took some time to make her realize who her august visitor was. She was getting blind; she had never been a favourite with Mrs. de Tracy, nor had she entered Stoke Revel Manor since her nursling disgraced it by marrying a Bean. She curtseyed humbly to the great lady.

"There now, ma'am," she said, "it's not often we have seen you across the river. Will you please to come inside and sit down, ma'am? 'T is very warm this afternoon, it is." She was a good deal fluttered in her welcome, for there was that in Mrs. de Tracy's air that seemed to bode misfortune.

"I shall sit down for a few minutes, Elizabeth," was the reply, "while I explain my visit to you."

Mrs. Prettyman stood aside respectfully, and Mrs. de Tracy swept past her into the cottage and seated herself there. It never occurred to her to ask the old woman to sit down in her own house; she expected her to stand throughout the interview. Without further preamble, then, Mrs. de Tracy came to the point:--

"Elizabeth," she said, "I have come to tell you that I am going to sell the land on which this cottage stands, and that you will have to find some other home."

The old woman did not understand for a minute. "You be going to sell the land, ma'am?" she repeated stupidly.

"Yes, I am. A gentleman from London wishes to buy it; you will need to go."

"A gentleman from London! Lor, ma'am, no gentleman from London wouldn't live 'ere!" Elizabeth cried, perfectly dazed by the statement.

Mrs. de Tracy repeated: "It is not your business, Elizabeth, what he intends to do with the place; all you have to do is to remove from the house."

The old woman sank down on the nearest chair and covered her face with her hands. She was so old and so tired that she had no heart to face life under new conditions, even should they be better than those she left. A younger woman would have snapped her fingers in Mrs. de Tracy's face, so to speak, and wished her joy of her old rattletrap of a house, but Elizabeth Prettyman, after a lifetime of struggles, had not vitality enough for such an action. She had never dreamed of leaving the cottage, and where was she to go? Her furrowed face wore an expression of absolute terror now when she looked up.

"But where be I to live, ma'am?" she cried.

"I do not know, Elizabeth; you must arrange that with your relations," said Mrs. de Tracy.

"I don't 'ave but only me niece--'er as married down Exeter way."

"Well, you should write to her then."

"She don't want to keep me, Nettie don't,--she's but a poor man's wife, and five chillen she 'as; it's not like as if she were me daughter, ma'am."

"You have some small sum of money of your own every year, have you not?" Mrs. de Tracy asked.

"Ten pound a year, ma'am; the same that me 'usband left me; two 'undred pounds 'e 'ad saved and 't is in an annuity; that's all I 'ave--that and me plum tree."

"The plum tree is not yours, either, Elizabeth; that belongs to the land," said Mrs. de Tracy curtly.