“Tell me the whole story if you can, Dick, I don’t understand, you see.”

“I suppose it will sound rather commonplace to you,” said Dick, humbly, “but it means everything to me.  I—­I’m engaged to Madge Preston.  I’ve known her for a year, and been engaged half of it, and I ought to know my own mind by now.  But father has simply set his forefeet and won’t hear of it.  Won’t even let me talk to him about it.”

Dick’s hands went into his pockets and his head drooped, and his big figure lagged pathetically.  The Bishop put his hand on the young man’s shoulder, and left it there as they walked slowly on, but he said nothing.

“It’s her father, you know,” Dick went on.  “Such rot, to hold a girl responsible for her ancestors!  Isn’t it rot, now?  Father says they’re a bad stock, dissipated and arrogant and spendthrift and shiftless and weak—­oh, and a lot more!  He’s not stingy with his adjectives, bless you!  Picture to yourself Madge being dissipated and arrogant and—­have you seen Madge?” he interrupted himself.

The Bishop shook his head.  “Eleanor made an attempt on my life with a string across the path, to-day.  We were friends over that.”

“She’s a winning little rat,” said Dick, smiling absent-mindedly, “but nothing to Madge.  You’ll understand when you see Madge how I couldn’t give her up.  And it isn’t so much that—­my feeling for her—­though that’s enough in all conscience, but picture to yourself, if you please, a man going to a girl and saying:  ’I’m obliged to give you up, because my father threatens to disinherit me and kick me out of the business.  He objects because your father’s a poor lot.’  That’s a nice line of conduct to map out for your only son.  Yet that’s practically what my father wishes me to do.  But he’s brought me up a gentleman, by George,” said Dick straightening himself, “and it’s too late to ask me to be a beastly cad.  Besides that,” and voice and figure drooped to despondency again, “I just can’t give her up.”

The Bishop’s keen eyes were on the troubled face, and in their depths lurked a kindly shade of amusement.  He could see stubborn old Dick Fielding in stubborn young Dick Fielding so plainly.  Dick the elder had been his friend for forty years.  But he said nothing.  It was better to let the boy talk himself out a bit.  In a moment Dick began again.

“Can’t see why the governor’s so keen against Colonel Preston, anyway.  He’s lost his money and made a mess of his life, and I rather fancy he drinks too much.  But he’s the sort of man you can’t help being proud of—­bad clothes and vices and all—­handsome and charming and thorough-bred—­and father must know it.  His children love him—­he can’t be such a brute as the governor says.  Anyway, I don’t want to marry the Colonel—­what’s the use of rowing about the Colonel?” inquired Dick, desperately.

The Bishop asked a question now:  “How many children are there?”