For the
last ten he was understood to be living in the island of Porto Rico,
and planting sugar. Meanwhile his uncle had died, and his cousin (his
uncle's only son) had succeeded to the peerage. But the other day his
cousin, too, had died, and died childless, so that the estates and
dignities had devolved upon himself. With that, a return to England
became an obligation; there were a score of minor beneficiaries under
his cousin's will, whose legacies could not, without great delay, be
paid unless the new lord was at hand.
II.
Mrs Sandryl-Kempton sat before the fire in her wide, airy, faded
drawing-room, and thought of the Theodore Vellan of old days, and
wondered what the present Lord Vellan would be like. She had got a
note from him that morning, despatched from Southampton the day
before, announcing, 'I shall be in town to-morrow--at Bowden's Hotel,
in Cork Street,' and asking when he might come to her. She had
answered by telegraph, 'Come and dine at eight to-night,' to which he
had wired back an acceptance. Thereupon, she had told her son that he
must dine at his club; and now she was seated before her fire, waiting
for Theodore Vellan to arrive, and thinking of thirty years ago.
She was a bride then, and her husband, her brother Paul, and Theodore
Vellan were bound in a league of ardent young-mannish friendship, a
friendship that dated from the time when they had been undergraduates
together at Oxford.
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