Page:The Talleyrand maxim, by J.S. Fletcher (IA talleyrandmaximb00flet).pdf/86

 memory: it was simply to stop her from coming down to Eldrick & Pascoe's.

"Well, I don't think you'll see him again," he remarked. "And I dare say you won't care if you don't."

He turned away then, but before he had gone far, the woman called him back.

"What am I to do with his bits of things, mister, if he doesn't come back?" she asked.

"Aught you please," answered Pratt, indifferently. "Throw 'em on the dust-heap."

As he went back to the centre of the town, he occupied himself in considering his attitude to Mrs. Mallathorpe when she called on him that evening. In spite of his own previous notion, and of his carefully-worked-out scheme about the stewardship, he had been impressed by what Parrawhite has said as to the wisdom of selling the will for cash. Pratt did not believe that there was anything in the Collingwood suggestion—no doubt whatever, he had decided, that old Bartle had meant to tell Mrs. Mallathorpe of his discovery when she called in answer to his note, but as he had died before she could call, and as he had told nobody but him, Pratt, what possible danger could there be from Collingwood? And a stewardship for life appealed to him. He knew, from observation of the world, what a fine thing it is to have a certainty.

Once he became steward and agent of the Normandale Grange estate, he would stick there, until he had saved a tidy heap of money. Then he would retire—with a pension and a handsome present—and enjoy himself. To be provided for, for life!—what more could a wise man