"She has a fortnight to consider the payment. We shall catch the scoundrel before then--you understand. Eh, what? Good! Now I must be off to Julia's ball. Are you coming?--not asked! Of course; you love Lucy, and that will never do for Julia, who wants her to make a titled match. Good-night! Ha, ha! You have plenty to think about. Don't get brain fever. Good night!"
Then the oddly-assorted pair parted for the time being.
As Martin Dimsdale had spent the greater part of his sixty years in Burmah, he naturally retained an affectionate remembrance of that most fantastic country. This he showed by calling his house "Rangoon;" and, as a further concession to what might almost be termed his native land, the house was built after the fashion, more or less accurate, of a bungalow. On arriving some ten years previously in England, Mr. Dimsdale had purchased an ancient Grange with its few remaining acres, situated on the verge of Hampstead Heath. In spite of the fact that the mansion was historic and famous, this Vandal pulled it down, amidst the protests and to the grief of various antiquarians. On the cleared ground he erected the rambling one-storey building which reminded him of the Far East. It was not an entirely Indian house, nor a wholly Burmese house, nor an absolutely English house, but a bastard mixture of all three, as the chilly northern climate had to be taken into consideration. But Dimsdale looked upon it as a genuine reconstruction of the bungalows to which he had been accustomed, and would hear no argument to the contrary. This was just as well for those who differed from his views, as he was a peppery little man, voluble in speech.
From the wide road, which flanked this corner of the Heath, the grounds were divided by a tall and thick-set laurel hedge, which must have taken years to attain its present stately beauty. At right angles to this, red-brick walls, old and mellow, ran back for a considerable distance to terminate in another hedge of mingled holly and oak saplings and sweetbriar and hawthorn. A gate in the centre of this gave admittance to a well-cultivated kitchen-garden of two acres. Beyond, and divided from the garden by a low stone wall, stretched the meadows, encircled by aggressive barbed-wire fences. The whole, consisting of eight acres, belonged to the man who had built the bungalow, and was a very desirable freehold for a well-to-do middle-class gentleman.