’But, sir, that could not be; you have never proposed it.  It would be all, from first to last, my doing.’

’True, dear Maud, but I know, alas! more of this evil and slanderous world than your happy inexperience can do.  Who will receive our testimony?  None—­no, not one.  The difficulty—­the insuperable moral difficulty is this—­that I should expose myself to the plausible imputation of having worked upon you, unduly, for this end; and more, that I could not hold myself quite free from blame.  It is your voluntary goodness, Maud.  But you are young, inexperienced; and it is, I hold it, my duty to stand between you and any dealing with your property at so unripe an age.  Some people may call this Quixotic.  In my mind it is an imperious mandate of conscience; and I peremptorily refuse to disobey it, although within three weeks an execution will be in this house!’

I did not quite know what an execution meant; but from two harrowing novels, with whose distresses I was familiar, I knew that it indicated some direful process of legal torture and spoliation.

’Oh, uncle I—­oh, sir!—­you cannot allow this to happen.  What will people say of me?  And—­and there is poor Milly—­and everything!  Think what it will be.’

’It cannot be helped—­you cannot help it, Maud.  Listen to me.  There will be an execution here, I cannot say exactly how soon, but, I think, in a little more than a fortnight.  I must provide for your comfort.  You must leave.  I have arranged that you shall join Milly, for the present, in France, till I have time to look about me.  You had better, I think, write to your cousin, Lady Knollys.  She, with all her oddities, has a heart.  Can you say, Maud, that I have been kind?’

‘You have never been anything but kind,’ I exclaimed.

‘That I’ve been self-denying when you made me a generous offer?’ he continued.  ’That I now act to spare you pain?  You may tell her, not as a message from me, but as a fact, that I am seriously thinking of vacating my guardianship—­that I feel I have done her an injustice, and that, so soon as my mind is a little less tortured, I shall endeavour to effect a reconciliation with her, and would wish ultimately to transfer the care of your person and education to her.  You may say I have no longer an interest even in vindicating my name.  My son has wrecked himself by a marriage.  I forgot to tell you he stopped at Feltram, and this morning wrote to pray a parting interview.  If I grant it, it shall be the last.  I shall never see him or correspond with him more.’

The old man seemed much overcome, and held his hankerchief to his eyes.

’He and his wife are, I understand, about to emigrate; the sooner the better,’ he resumed, bitterly.  ’Deeply, Maud, I regret having tolerated his suit to you, even for a moment.  Had I thought it over, as I did the whole case last night, nothing could have induced me to permit it.  But I have lived for so long like a monk in his cell, my wants and observation limited to the narrow compass of this chamber, that my knowledge of the world has died out with my youth and my hopes:  and I did not, as I ought to have done, consider many objections.  Therefore, dear Maud, on this one subject, I entreat, be silent; its discussion can effect nothing now.  I was wrong, and frankly ask you to forget my mistake.’