“Look here!” said Guy again. “Another question. I’ve heard that Mrs. Tretheroe—who was Miss Veronica Leighton—is in these parts again. Is that so?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Braxfield. “She’s come back, too—quite recently. She’s taken the Dower House, Mr. Guy—you know, sir, at the bottom of our park. She took it a month or so ago, from Mr. Harry—he acts in everything now, sir—and she’s moved into it.”
“She took it?” exclaimed Guy, with emphasis on the personal pronoun. “She! What? . . . is Colonel Tretheroe dead, then?”
“Died out in India, sir—so I’m given to understand—a year since,” answered Braxfield. “So—she returned home and came looking for a house about here, and, as I say, has got our Dower House. And she looks no older, Mr. Guy—not a bit! Handsomer than ever, sir.”
Braxfield was regaining his confidence, and his tongue. He wanted to talk, now.
“They say she’s a very wealthy young widow, Mr. Guy,” he went on. “Colonel Tretheroe, he left her everything—and he was a rich man, I’m told. Seems like it, too—she’s got a fine staff of servants, and she’s spent a lot of money on the house already, and is spending more. Got a house-party there just now—London people I believe. Seems inclined to enjoy herself, I think, sir.”
“No children, sir,” replied Braxfield. “Never been any, so I’m told.”
Guy looked around at the familiar features of the old butler’s sanctum. Nothing seemed to have changed. His glance rested on the decanter which Braxfield had set on the table just before hearing the tap at the window.
“Give me a drink, Braxfield,” he said suddenly. “I guess you’ve some of our old whisky left, even after seven years. And some soda-water. Get one yourself—it’s a long time since you and I had a drink together—though we’ve had many a one in this very room in the old days!”
He laughed cynically as he lifted the glass which Braxfield presently handed to him—but there was no answering laugh from the old butler. Braxfield, indeed, respectfully raising his own glass with a murmured expression of his good wishes, seemed inclined to become sentimental.
“It is a very long time, sir,” he said. “Yes, a very long time, Mr. Guy! But I humbly trust it’s over, sir—I hope you’re coming home for good.”