"A mortgage on this house. Oh, I see," she was quick, "that's been done. I'm stupid. Of course you've done all the obvious things. It's a question then, of a touch? Who can we touch? I suppose there's only one possibility. Gordon's widow - the dark Rosaleen!"

Jeremy shook his head dubiously.

"It would have to be a large sum... And it can't come out of capital. The money's only in trust for her for her life."

"I hadn't realised that. I thought she had it absolutely. What happens when she dies?"

"It comes to Gordon's next of kin. That is to say it is divided between myself, Lionel, Adela, and Maurice's son, Rowley."

"It comes to us..." said Frances slowly.

Something seemed to pass through the room - a cold air - the shadow of a thought.

Frances said: "You didn't tell me that... I thought she got it for keeps - that she could leave it to any one she liked?"

"No. By the statute relating to intestacy of 1925..."

It is doubtful whether Frances listened to his explanation. She said when his voice stopped:

"It hardly matters to us personally. We'll be dead and buried, long before she's middle-aged. How old is she? Twenty-five - twenty-six?

She'll probably live to be seventy."

Jeremy Cloade said doubtfully:

"We might ask her for a loan - putting it on family grounds? She may be a generous-minded girl - really we know so little of her -"

Frances said: "At any rate we have been reasonably nice to her - not catty like Adela. She might respond."

Her husband said warningly:

"There must be no hint of - er - real urgency."

Frances said impatiently: "Of course not! The trouble is that it's not the girl herself we shall have to deal with. She's completely under the thumb of that brother of hers."

"A very unattractive young man," said Jeremy Cloade.

Frances sudden smile flashed out.

"Oh, no," she said. "He's attractive. Most attractive. Rather unscrupulous, too, I should imagine. But then as far as that goes, I'm unscrupulous too!"

Her smile hardened. She looked up at her husband.

"We're not going to be beaten, Jeremy," she said. "There's bound to be some way... if I have to rob a bank!"

Chapter 3

"Money!" said Lynn.

Rowley Cloade nodded. He was a big square young man with a brick- red skin, thoughtful blue eyes and very fair hair. He had a slowness that seemed more purposeful than ingrained. He used deliberation as others use quickness of repartee.

"Yes," he said, "everything seems to boil down to money these days."

"But I thought farmers had done so well during the war?"

"Oh, yes - but that doesn't do you any permanent good. In a year we'll be back where we were - with wages up, workers unwilling, everybody dissatisfied and nobody knowing where they are. Unless, of course, you can farm in a really big way. Old Gordon knew. That was where he was preparing to come in."