He might, indeed, get at the father and tell his purpose plainly and honestly.  But he thought that his chance of prevailing with the girl might be better than with the father.  In such cases it is so often the daughter who prevails with her own parents after she has surrendered her own heart.  The old man had looked at him sternly, had seemed even in that moment of time to disapprove of him.  But the girl——.  Well; in such an interview as that there had not been much scope for approval.  Nor was he a man likely to flatter himself that any girl could fall in love with him at first sight.  But she had not looked sternly at him.  In the few words which she had spoken her voice had been very sweet.  Both of them had said they remembered him after the long interval that had passed;—­but the manner of saying so had been very different.  He was almost sure that the old man would be averse to him, though he could tell himself personally that there was no just cause for such aversion.  But if this were so, he could not forward his cause by making his offer through the father.

‘Well, John, how has it gone with you at Babington?’ his father asked almost as soon as they were together.

It had not been difficult to tell his father of the danger before he made his visit, but now he hesitated before he could avow that the young lady’s hand had again been offered to him.  ’Pretty well, sir.  We had a good deal of archery and that kind of thing.  It was rather slow.’

‘I should think so.  Was there nothing besides the archery?’

‘Not much.’

‘The young lady was not troublesome?’

’Perhaps the less we say about it the better, sir.  They were very kind to me when I was a boy.’

’I have nothing to say at all, unless I am to be called on to welcome her as a daughter-in-law.’

‘You will not have to do that, sir.’

‘I suppose, John, you mean to marry some day,’ said the father after a pause.  Then it occurred to the son that he must have some one whom he could trust in this matter which now occupied his mind, and that no one probably might be so able to assist him as his father.  ’I wish I knew what your idea of life is,’ continued Mr. Caldigate.  ’I fear you will be growing tired of this place, and that when you get back to your gold-mines you will stay there.’

‘There is no fear of that.  I do not love the place well enough.’

’If you were settled here, I should feel more comfortable.  I sometimes think, John, that if you would fix yourself I would give the property up to you altogether and go away with my books into some town.  Cambridge, perhaps, would do as well as any other.’

’You must never do that, sir.  You must not leave Folking.  But as for myself,—­I have ideas about my own life.’

‘Are they such that you can tell them?’

’Yes;—­you shall hear them all.  But I shall expect you to help me;—­or at least not turn against me?’