“My dear,” he said, “all that I can suggest is that you should take it to your father and hear what he has got to say.  After all, it is he who must have your true welfare most at heart.  It was into his hands that I heard your mother, in peculiarly solemn words, consign you and your interests.  Take it to your father, dear, there is no counsel like that of a father.”

Had Mr. Fraser been the father, this would, doubtless, have been true enough.  But though he had known him for so many years, and was privy to much of his history, he did not yet understand Philip Caresfoot.  His own open and guileless nature did not easily suspect evil in another, more especially when that other was the father of her whom he looked upon as the earthly incarnation of all that was holy and pure.

Angela sighed and obeyed—­sighed from doubt, obeyed from duty.  She handed the letter to Philip without a word—­without a word he read it.

“I want your opinion, father,” she said.  “I wish to do what is right.  You know how painful what has happened has been for me.  You know—­or, if you do not know, you must have guessed—­how completely shattered my life is.  As for this marriage, the whole thing is repugnant to me; personally, I had rather sacrifice fifty properties than go through it, but I know that I ought to think of others.  Mr. Fraser tells me that it is my duty to consult you, that you will naturally have my interest most at heart, that it was into your hands and to your care that my mother consigned me on her deathbed.  Father”—­and she clasped her hands and looked him full in the face with her earnest eyes—­“Mr. Fraser is right, it must be for you to decide.  I will trust you entirely, and leave the burden of decision to your honour and generosity; only I say, spare me if you can.”

Philip rose and went to look out of the window, that he might hide the evident agitation of his face and the tremor of his limbs.  He felt that the crucial moment had come.  All his poor sophistry, all his miserable shuffling and attempts to fix the responsibility of his acts on others, had recoiled upon his own head.  She had come to him and laid the burden on his heart.  What should he answer?  For a moment the shades—­for with him they were only shades—­of good angels gained the upper hand, and he was about to turn and look her in the face—­for then he felt he could have looked her in the face—­and bid her have nothing to do with George and his proposals.  But, even in the act of turning to obey the impulse, his eyes fell upon the roof of Isleworth Hall, which, standing on an eminence, could easily be seen from the Abbey House, and his mind, quicker than the eye, flew to the outlook place upon that roof where he had so often climbed as a boy, and surveyed the fair champaign country beyond it; meadow and wood, fallow and cornland, all of which were for him involved in that answer.  He did not stop turning, but—­so quick is the working of the mind—­he changed the nature of his answer.  The real presence of the demon of greed chased away the poor angelic shadows.