Again, more gently, the squire shook the shoulder under his hand.  “I’m out to make you happy, Dick.  Can’t you see it?  For your mother’s sake—­as well as your own.  And there’s a chance coming your way now—­or I’m much mistaken—­which it would be madness to miss.  This Miss Moore—­she’s dropped from the skies, but she’s charming, she’s a lady, she’s just the woman for you.  What, Dick?  Think so yourself, do you?  No, it’s all right, I’m not prying.  But this is a chance you’ll never get again.  And you can’t ask her, you can’t have the face to ask her, as long as you keep that half-witted creature dangling after you.  It wouldn’t be right, man, even if she’d have you.  Look the thing in the face, and you’ll be the first to say so!  It would be a hopeless handicap to any marriage—­an insurmountable obstacle to happiness, hers as well as yours.  Don’t tell me you can’t see it!  You know it.  You know you’ve no right to ask any woman to share a burden of that kind with you.  It would be manifestly unfair—­iniquitous.  There!  I’ve done.  I’ve never spoken my mind to this extent before.  I’ve hoped—­I’ve always hoped—­the wretched boy would die.  But he hasn’t.  That sort never does.  He’ll live for ever.  And it’s a damned shame that you should sacrifice yourself to him any longer.  For heaven’s sake let him go!”

He ceased to speak, and there fell a silence so tense, so electric, that it seemed as if it must mask something terrible.  Dick’s face was still immovable, but he had the look of a man who endures unutterable things.  He had flinched once—­and only once—­during the squire’s speech, and that was at the first mention of Juliet.  But for the rest he had stood quite rigid, as he stood now, his lips tightly compressed, his eyes looking straight before him.

He came out of his silence at last with a movement so sudden that it was as if he flung aside some weight that threatened to overwhelm him.  The arrested vitality flashed back into his face.  He threw back his head with a smile, and looked the squire in the face.

“You haven’t left me a leg to stand on, sir,” he said.  “But all the same—­I stand.  There’s nothing more to be said except—­may I pay for the window?”

Fielding’s hand dropped from his shoulder.  He flung round fiercely and tramped to the window, swearing inarticulately.

Dick’s black brows went up again to a humorous angle.  He pursed his lips, but he did not whistle.

“Do you realize that my wife might have been killed?” Fielding growled at last.

“Oh, quite,” said Dick.  “I’m glad she wasn’t.  Ought I to congratulate her?”

“Oh, don’t be so damn funny!” Fielding jingled the money in his pocket irritably.  “You won’t laugh when I turn you out.”

“I wonder,” said Dick.

Fielding turned sharply round upon him.  “You behave as if you don’t care what I do,” he said, an ugly scowl on his face.  “Or perhaps you think I won’t or can’t—­do it.”