‘I want her to have it all,’ said William Belton to Mr Green, the lawyer, when they came to discuss the necessary arrangements for the property.

‘But that would be absurd.’

‘Never mind. It is what I wish. I suppose a man may do what he likes with his own.’

‘She won’t take it,’ said the lawyer.

‘She must take it, if you manage the matter properly,’ said Will.

‘I don’t suppose it will make much difference,’ said the lawyer ‘now that Captain Aylmer is out of the running.’

‘I know nothing about that. Of course I am very glad that he should be out of the running, as you call it. He is a bad sort of fellow, and I didn’t want him to have the property. But all that has had nothing to do with it. I’m not doing it because I think she is ever to be my wife.’

>From this the reader will understand that Belton was still fidgeting himself and the lawyer about the estate when he passed through London. The matter in dispute, however, was so important that he was induced to seek the advice of others besides Mr Green, and at last was brought to the conclusion that it was his paramount duty to become Belton of Belton. There seemed in the minds of all these councillors to be some imperative and almost imperious requirement that the acres should go back to a man of his name. Now, as there was no one else of the family who could stand in his way, he had no alternative but to become Belton of Belton. He would, however, sell his estate in Norfolk, and raise money for endowing Clara with commensurate riches. Such was his own plan but having fallen among counsellors he would not exactly follow his own plan, and at last submitted to an arrangement in accordance with which an annuity of eight hundred pounds a year was to be settled upon Clara, and this was to lie as a charge upon the estate in Norfolk.

‘It seems to me to be very shabby,’ said William Belton.

‘It seems to me to be very extravagant,’ said the leader among the counsellors. ‘She is net entitled to sixpence.’

But at last the arrangement as above described was the one to which they all assented.

When Belton reached the house which was now his own he found no one there but his sister. Clara was at the cottage. As he had been told that she was to return there, he had no reason to be annoyed. But, nevertheless, he was annoyed, or rather discontented, and had not been a quarter of an hour about the place before he declared his intention to go and seek her.

‘Do no such thing, Will; pray do not,’ said his sister.

‘And why not?’

‘Because it will be better that you should wait. You will only injure yourself and her by being impetuous.’

‘But it is absolutely necessary that she should know her own position. It would be cruelty to keep her in ignorance though for the matter of that I shall be ashamed to tell her. Yes I shall be ashamed to look her in the face. What will she think of it after I had assured her that she should have the whole?’

‘But she would not have taken it, Will. And had she done so, she would have been very wrong. Now she will be comfortable.’

‘I wish I could be comfortable,’ said he.

‘If you will only wait’

‘I hate waiting. I do not see what good it will do. Besides, I don’t mean to say anything about that not today, at least. I don t indeed. As for being here and not seeing her, that is out of the question. Of course she would think that I had quarrelled with her, and that I meant to take everything to myself, now that I have the power.’

‘She won’t suspect you of wishing to quarrel with her, Will’

‘I should in her place. It is out of the question that I should be here, and not go to her. It would be monstrous. I will wait till they have done lunch, and then I will go up.’

It was at last decided that he should walk up to the cottage, call upon Colonel Askerton, and ask to see Clara in the colonel’s presence. It was thought that he could make his statement about the money better before a third person who could be regarded as Clara’s friend, than could possibly be done between themselves. He did, therefore, walk across to the cottage, and was shown into Colonel Askerton’s study.

‘There he is,’ Mrs Askerton said, as soon as she heard the sound of the bell. ‘I knew that he would come at once.’

During the whole morning Mrs Askerton had been insisting that Belton would make his appearance on that very day the day of his arrival at Belton, and Clara had been asserting that he would not do so.

‘Why should he come?’ Clara had said.

‘Simply to take you to his own house, like any other of his goods and chattels.’

‘I am not his goods or his chattels.’

‘But you soon will be; and why shouldn’t you accept your lot quietly? He is Belton of Belton, and everything here belongs to him.’

‘I do not belong to him.’

‘What nonsense! When a man has the command of the situation, as he has, he can do just what he pleases. If he were to come and carry you off by violence, I have no doubt the Beltonians would assist him, and say that he was right. And you of course would forgive him. Belton of Belton may do anything.’

‘That is nonsense, if you please.’

‘Indeed if you had any of that decent feeling of feminine inferiority which ought to belong to all women, he would have found you sitting on the doorstep of his house waiting for him.’

That had been said early in the morning, when they first knew that he had arrived; but they had been talking about him ever since talking about him under pressure from Mrs Askerton, till Clara had been driven to long that she might be spared. ‘If he chooses to come, he will come,’ she said. ‘Of course he will come,’ Mrs Askerton had answered, and then they heard the ring of the hell. ‘There he is. I could swear to the sound of his foot. Doesn’t he step as though he were Belton of Belton, and conscious that everything belonged to him?’ Then there was a pause. ‘He has been shown in to Colonel Askerton. What on earth could he want with him?’

‘He has called to tell him something about the cottage,’ said Clara, endeavouring to speak as though she were calm through it all.

‘Cottage! Fiddlestick! The idea of a man coming to look after his trumpery cottage on the first day of his showing himself as lord of his own property! Perhaps he is demanding that you shall be delivered up to him. If he does I shall vote for obeying.’

‘And I for disobeying and shall vote very strongly too.’

Their suspense was yet prolonged for another ten minutes, and at the end of that time the servant came in and asked if Miss Amedroz would be good enough to go into the master’s room. ‘Mr Belton is there, Fanny?’ asked Mrs Askerton. The girl confessed that Mr Belton was there, and then Clara, without another word, got up and left the room. She had much to do in assuming a look of composure before she opened the door; but she made the effort, and was not unsuccessful. In another second she found her hand in her cousin’s, and his bright eye was fixed upon her with that eager friendly glance which made his face so pleasant to those whom he loved.

‘Your cousin has been telling me of the arrangements he has been making for you with the lawyers,’ said Colonel Askerton. ‘I can only say that I wish all the ladies had cousins so liberal, and so able to be liberal.’

‘I thought I would see Colonel Askerton first, as you are staying at his house. And as for liberality there is nothing of the kind. You must understand, Clara, that a fellow can’t do what he likes with his own in this country. I have found myself so bullied by lawyers and that sort of people, that I have been obliged to yield to them. I wanted that you should have the old place, to do just what you pleased with It.’

‘That was out of the question, Will.’

‘Of course it was,’ said Colonel Askerton. Then, as Belton himself did not proceed to the telling of his own story, the colonel told it for him, and explained what was the income which Clara was to receive.

‘But that is as much out of the question,’ said she, ‘as the other. I cannot rob you in that way. I cannot and I shall not. And why should I? What do I want with an income? Something I ought to have, if only for the credit of the family, and that I am willing to take from your kindness; but’

‘It’s all settled now, Clara.’

‘I don’t think that you can lessen the weight of your obligation, Miss Amedroz, after what has been done up in London,’ said the colonel.

‘If you had said a hundred a year’

‘I have been allowed to say nothing,’ said Belton; ‘those people have said eight and so it is settled. When are you coming over to see Mary?’

To this question he got no definite answer, and as he went away immediately afterwards he hardly seemed to expect one. He did not even ask for Mrs Askerton, and as that lady remarked, behaved altogether like a bear. ‘But what a munificent bear!’ she said. ‘Fancy eight hundred a year of your own. One begins to doubt whether it is worth one’s while to marry at all with such an income as that to do what one likes with! However, it all means nothing. It will all be his own again before you have even touched it.’

‘You must not say anything more about that,’ said Clara gravely.

‘And why must I not?’

‘Because I shall hear nothing more of it. There is an end of all that as there ought to be.’

‘Why an end? I don’t see an end. There will be no end till Belton of Belton has got you and your eight hundred a year as well as everything else.’

‘You will find that he does not mean anything more,’ said Clara.

‘You think not?’

‘I am sure of it.’ Then there was a little sound in her throat as though she were in some danger of being choked; but she soon recovered herself, and was able to express herself clearly. ‘I have only one favour to ask you now, Mrs Askerton, and that is that you will never say anything more about him. He has changed his mind. Of course he has, or he would not come here like that and have gone away without saying a word.’

‘Not a word! A man gives you eight hundred a year and that is not saying a word!’

‘Not a word except about money! But of course he is right. I know that he is right. Alter what has passed he would be very wrong to to think about it any more. You joke about his being Belton of Belton. But it does make a difference.’

‘It does does it?’

‘It has made a difference. I see and feel it now. I shall never hear him ask me that question any more.’

‘And if you did hear him, what answer would you make him?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘That is just it. Women are so cross-grained that it is a wonder to me that men should ever have any. thing to do with them. They have about them some madness of a phantasy which they dignify with the name of feminine pride, and under the cloak of this they believe themselves to be justified in tormenting their lovers’ lives out. The only consolation is that they torment themselves as much. Can anything be more cross-grained than you are at this moment? You were resolved just now that it would be the most unbecoming thing in the world if he spoke a word more about his love for the next twelve months’

‘Mrs Askerton, I said nothing about twelve months.’

‘And now you are broken-hearted because he did not blurt it all out before Colonel Askerton in a business interview, which was very properly had at once, and in which he has had the exceeding good taste to confine himself altogether to the one subject.’

‘I am not complaining.’

‘It was good taste; though if he had not been a bear he might have asked after me, who am fighting his battles for him night and day.’

‘But what will he do next?’

‘Eat his dinner, I should think, as it is now nearly five o’clock. Your father used always to dine at five.’

‘I can’t go to see Mary,’ she said, ‘till he comes here again.’

‘He will be here fast enough. I shouldn’t wonder if he was to come here tonight.’ And he did come again that night.

When Belton’s interview was over in the colonel’s study, he left the house without even asking after the mistress, as that mistress had taken care to find out and went off, rambling about the estate which was now his own. It was a beautiful place, and he was not insensible to the gratification of being its owner. There is much in the glory of ownership of the ownership of land and houses, of beeves and woolly flocks, of wide fields and thick-growing woods, even when that ownership is of late date, when it conveys to the owner nothing but the realization of a property on the soil; but there is much more in it when it contains the memories of old years; when the glory is the glory of race as well as the glory of power and property. There had been Beltons of Belton living there for many centuries, and now he was the Belton of the day, standing on his own ground the descendant and representative of the Beltons of old Belton of Belton without a flaw in his pedigree! He felt himself to be proud of his position prouder than he could have been of any other that might have been vouchsafed to him. And yet amidst it all he was somewhat ashamed of his pride. ‘The man who can do it for himself is the real man after all,’ he said. ‘But I have got it by a fluke and by such a sad chance too!’ Then he wandered on, thinking of the circumstances under which the property had fallen into his hands, and remembering how and when and where the first idea had occurred to him of making Clara Amedroz his wife. He had then felt that if he could only do that he could reconcile himself to the heirship. And the idea had grown upon him instantly, and had become a passion by the eagerness with which he had welcomed it. From that day to this he had continued to tell himself that he could not enjoy his good fortune unless he could enjoy it with her. There had come to be a horrid impediment in his way a barrier which had seemed to have been placed there by his evil fortune, to compensate the gifts given to him by his good fortune, and that barrier had been Captain Aylmer. He had not, in fact, seen much of his rival, but he had seen enough to make it matter of wonder to him that Clara could be attached to such a man. He had thoroughly despised Captain Aylmer, and had longed to show his contempt of the man by kicking him out of the hotel at the London railway station. At that moment all the world had seemed to him to be wrong and wretched.

But now it seemed that all the world might so easily be made right again! The impediment had got itself removed. Belton did not even yet altogether comprehend by what means Clara had escaped from the meshes of the Aylmer Park people, but he did know that she had escaped. Her eyes had been opened before it was too late, and she was a free woman to be compassed if only a man might compass her. While she had been engaged to Captain Aylmer, Will had felt that she was not assailable. Though he had not been quite able to restrain himself as on that fatal occasion when he had taken her in his arms and kissed her still he had known that as she was an engaged woman, he could not, without insulting her, press his own suit upon her. But now all that was over. Let him say what he liked on that head, she would have no proper plea for anger. She was assailable and, as this was so, why the mischief should he not set about the work at once? His sister bade him wait. Why should he wait when one fortunate word might do it? Wait! He could not wait. How are you to bid a starving man to wait when you put him down at a well-covered board? Here was he, walking about Belton Park just where she used to walk with him and there was she at Belton Cottage, within half an hour of him at this moment, if he were to go quickly; and yet Mary was telling him to wait! No; he would not wait. There could be no reason for waiting. Wait, indeed, till some other Captain Aylmer should come in the way and give him more trouble!

So he wandered on, resolving that he would see his cousin again that very day. Such an interview as that which had just taken place between two such dear friend............