Pinned to the parchment of one of the indentures was a letter, which
Winterborne had never seen before. It bore a remote date, the
handwriting being that of some solicitor or agent, and the signature
the landholder's. It was to the effect that at any time before the
last of the stated lives should drop, Mr. Giles Winterborne, senior, or
his representative, should have the privilege of adding his own and his
son's life to the life remaining on payment of a merely nominal sum;
the concession being in consequence of the elder Winterborne's consent
to demolish one of the houses and relinquish its site, which stood at
an awkward corner of the lane and impeded the way.

The house had been pulled down years before. Why Giles's father had
not taken advantage of his privilege to insert his own and his son's
lives it was impossible to say. The likelihood was that death alone
had hindered him in the execution of his project, as it surely was, the
elder Winterborne having been a man who took much pleasure in dealing
with house property in his small way.

Since one of the Souths still survived, there was not much doubt that
Giles could do what his father had left undone, as far as his own life
was concerned. This possibility cheered him much, for by those houses
hung many things. Melbury's doubt of the young man's fitness to be the
husband of Grace had been based not a little on the precariousness of
his holdings in Little and Great Hintock. He resolved to attend to the
business at once, the fine for renewal being a sum that he could easily
muster. His scheme, however, could not be carried out in a day; and
meanwhile he would run up to South's, as he had intended to do, to
learn the result of the experiment with the tree.