Ellen Carley sat on that side of the comfortable round table most remote from Mr. Whitelaw, deadly pale, with her hands clasped before her.  Once she lifted her eyes with a piteous look to her father’s face; but he was smoking his pipe solemnly, with his gaze fixed upon the blazing logs in the grate, and contrived not to see that mute despairing appeal.  He had not looked at his daughter once since Stephen Whitelaw’s arrival, nor had he made any attempt to prepare her for this visit, this rapid consummation of the sacrifice.

“Come, Miss Carley,” said the former rather impatiently, after there had been a dead silence of some minutes, “I want to get an answer direct from your own lips.  Your father hasn’t been deceiving me, has he?”

“No,” Ellen said in a low voice, almost as if the reply were dragged from her by some physical torture.  “If my father has given you a promise for me, I will keep it.  But I don’t want to deceive you, on my part, Mr. Whitelaw,” she went on in a somewhat firmer tone.  “I will be your wife, since you and my father have settled that it must be so; but I can promise no more than that.  I will be dutiful and submissive to you as a wife, you may be sure—­only——­”

Mr. Whitelaw smiled a very significant smile, which implied that it would be his care to insure his wife’s obedience, and that he was troubled by no doubts upon that head.

The bailiff broke-in abruptly at this juncture.

“Lord bless the girl, what need is there of all this talk about what she will be and what she won’t be?  She’ll be as good a wife as any woman in England, I’ll stake my life upon that.  She’s been a good daughter, as all the world knows, and a good daughter is bound to make a good wife.  Say no more about it, Nell.  Stephen Whitelaw knows he’ll make no bad bargain in marrying you.”

The farmer received this remark with a loud sniff, expressive of offended dignity.

“Very likely not, William Carley,” he said; “but it isn’t every man that can make your daughter mistress of such a place as Wyncomb; and such men as could do it would look for money with a wife, however young and pretty she might be.  There’s two sides to a bargain, you see, William, and I should like things to be looked at in that light between you and me.”

“You’ve no call to take offence, Steph,” answered the bailiff with a conciliating grin.  “I never said you wasn’t a good match for my girl; but a pretty girl and a prudent clever housekeeper like Nell is a fortune in herself to any man.”

“Then the matter’s settled, I suppose,” said Mr. Whitelaw; “and the sooner the wedding comes off the better, to my mind.  If my wife that is to be wants anything in the way of new clothes, I shall be happy to put down a twenty-pound note—­or I’d go as far as thirty—­towards ’em.”

Ellen shook her head impatiently.

“I want nothing new,” she said; “I have as many things as I care to have.”