His father stroked his hand.

“It does no harm to cry, boy. It’s all the better. You will feel it less later. It had to come. But I have a great deal to tell you. You know we have become much poorer?”

“Well, yes, of course, Papa. I don’t know much about these things, but we have lacked nothing.”

“No, dear boy, but it is not Rackham. Do you remember Rackham well? You must—you were over thirteen, and big for your age, when you left it.”

“Yes, Papa,” said John, still sobbing. “I remember Rackham!”

“Well, John, it is very difficult to say, but I will try and say it. Technically—legally—I suppose that is the right word—Rackham is not mine any more.”

The boy looked bewildered. That Rackham had been their’s, his father’s, and his father’s father’s, and so on, and would be his in his turn, this was a thing he had taken for granted as part of the universe. That idea had no connotation of wealth in his mind. It was the very stuff of his thoughts. The Maples and Rackham were one thing.

“It could not be helped. I did my best. You know, land went to pieces … Your uncle was very generous; he was, really. We should not have been here, even, but for him. Honestly, John, your Aunt Hilda has been generous too. I can’t deny that.”

“What do you mean by generous, Papa?” said the young man, a little hardly.

“Why, my dear,” the other answered, sighing, “I owed her husband, and therefore I owed her, after her husband died, more than I could pay; more than there was anywhere. There was a German investment of your grandfather’s—did you know that?”

“No, Papa.”

“Well, it’s gone, of course. I lost it by your uncle’s advice; he said it was as safe as gold; but after all, he could not tell. No one could tell.”

“Papa,” said John Maple, asking a question of this sort for the first time in his life, prompted by he knew not what odd premonition of the future, “what was the sum owed? How much was the money claimed? How much would be needed to …?”

His father looked at him with a long look.

“You’re thinking of getting Rackham back?”

“Oh, no, Papa,” he said, startled. He had no conception of such powers. He could not even imagine himself earning. “I only wondered.”

“Well, well,” said Henry Maple, falling back into his vagueness, “your aunt will do the right thing. When I am gone, John, go straight back to her … You want to know … what the sum was?”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” said John. But something fierce in his voice belied the words.

“My dear boy, it is easily told. The first sum, you know, the actual sum, I don’t mean the interest—was £10,000. One bit after another … it began during those bad years … I saw corn sold at Lewes market for 10s. a sack … Anyhow, your uncle was really generous.