“I never thought about the matter, but I shall be only too glad to marry her with nothing but herself.”

“Very good.  I was going to say that, notwithstanding this, marriage is an important matter; and I must have time to think over it before I give you a decided answer, say a week.  I shall not, however, expect you to leave here unless you wish to do so, nor shall I seek to place any restrictions on your intercourse with Angela, since it would appear that the mischief is already done.  I am flattered by your proposal; but I must have time, and you must understand that in this instance hesitation does not necessarily mean consent.”

In affairs of this nature a man is satisfied with small mercies, and willing to put up with inconveniences that appear trifling in comparison with the disasters that might have overtaken him.  Arthur was no exception to the general rule.  Indeed, he was profuse in his thanks, and, buoyed up with all the confidence of youth, felt sure in his heart that he would soon find a way to extinguish any objections that might still linger in Philip’s mind.

His would-be father-in-law contented himself with acknowledging his remarks with courtesy, and the interview came to an end.

Arthur gone, however, his host lost all his calmness of demeanour, and, rising from his untasted meal, paced up and down the room in thought.  Everything had, he reflected, fallen out as he wished.  Young Heigham wished to marry his daughter, and he could not wish for a better husband.  Save for the fatality which had sent that woman to him on her fiend’s errand, he would have given his consent at once, and been glad to give it.  Not that he meant to refuse it—­he had no such idea.  And then he began to think what, supposing that Lady Bellamy’s embassy had been of a nature that he could entertain, which it was not, it would mean to him.  It would mean the realization of the work and aspirations of twenty years; it would mean his re-entry into the property and position from which he had, according to his own view, been unjustly ousted; it would mean, last but not least, triumph over George.  And now chance, mighty chance (as fools call Providence), had at last thrown into his hands a lever with which it would be easy to topple over every stumbling-block that lay in his path to triumph; more, he might even be able to spoil that Egyptian George, giving him less than his due.

Oh, how he hungered for the broad acres of his birthright! longing for them as a lover longs for his lost bride.  The opportunity would never come again; why should he throw it away?  To do so would be to turn his cousin into an open and implacable foe.  Why should he allow this girl, whose birth had bereft him of the only creature he had ever loved, whose sex had alienated the family estates, and for whose company he cared nothing, to come as a destruction on his plans?  She would be well-off; the man loved her.  As for her being engaged to this young Heigham, women soon got over those things.  After all, now that he came to think of the matter calmly, what valid cause was there why the thing should not be?