It was a good deal more than he had bargained for. Then he remembered sundry odd sums which, after all, he ought to have added to that £10,000. There had been the cleaning out of what they called “the Lake” but the villagers “the Pond”; and yes—now he remembered it—there had been the big subscription which he had thought only right for the building of the new bit on to the church. That was years ago, and somehow or other he had not connected it with the main debt. And then, of course, arrears did mount up. After all, 5 percent, on £10,000 was £500 a year, was it not? And there is interest on that interest when it is not paid. Yes, it was right enough, no doubt. Such was the course of Henry’s rambling mind, before which now stood a new figure, large, dominant, £17,324.

“Yes,” he said gently, looking up a little timidly, “yes, William, I am sure you’re right. I’ll look up my figures.” He had not an idea where they were, nor whether he had them all. “£17,324. I’m sure you are right.”

William began scribbling at the paper meaning-lessly with the point of a little gold pencil he carried on his watch-chain.

“You know, Henry, to tell you the honest truth,” he said, “I could not go beyond £20,000. I will be quite plain with you. We have never had any secrets from each other. I am not badly off. I don’t say I am. But what a man is worth is one thing, and the free money at his disposal is another. And Hilda, you know—not that I blame her—but she likes to have her house full of people …” He paused.

“Yes,” said Henry gently, “yes, she’s the wife of a rising man. She’s quite right.”

“Well, you see,” went on William, with his eyes still averted from his brother’s, and scribbling away furiously making circles round and round that figure of £17,324, “the fact is, that I can’t help thinking you and I might come to an arrangement which would suit both of us …”

“I don’t doubt it, William,” said Henry gently, and with some admiration in his voice. He had no idea how these good business men got on; he felt about them a little as he had felt about the big boys in the Eleven when he had been a little boy at school. “You have always been very generous to me, William.”

“I don’t want you to say that, Henry,” said William, decently and soberly. “I wish I could have done more. At any rate, there it is. And quite honestly, I shall not be able to go beyond £20,000.”

What now stood up in Henry’s mind out of the mist was the fact that there was a margin, a margin of well over £2,000, which he characteristically put down as “about three.” He was just going to suggest something about that margin, and how useful it would be to him, when William spoke again. “Henry,” he said, lowering his voice by a tone or two, and speaking more slowly, “I don’t want to seem to be giving advice; but I am more used to precise business perhaps than you are; that is inevitable, seeing the different kind of life I have had to lead … But … I am rather afraid that if we do not look out, the next few years might be disastrous to you.”

“Oh,” answered his brother uneasily, “things are bound to turn, you know. Only this morning I was reading that wheat had gone up another 2s.—it’s true it’s the time of year for that, but …”

William interrupted him firmly, looking him straight in the face for the first time in all this conversation, and bringing his right hand firmly down upon the table.

“My dear Henry, no,” he said, “no. I have seen any amount of this kind of thing. Honestly, it can’t go on. It’s your business, of course; I don’t want to interfere. But it would relieve me (and I know I am doing right in suggesting it) if you would undertake the only form of retrenchment you can.”

“What?” said Henry bewildered and alarmed. “Sell the place? William? Sell the place? Sell Rackham?”

“Oh, no!” answered William a little wearily, but trying to use a soothing tone.