He kissed his wife with passionate love and sorrow, and then turned to Julius with that mute look of inquiry which few find themselves able to resist.

“He is alive yet,—­much better, he says; and Charlotte thinks he may be in the fields again next season.”

“Thank God!  My poor Beatrice and her baby!  You see what is coming to them?”

“Yes.”

“And I am so poor I cannot get her the change of air, the luxuries, the medicines, which would at least prolong life, and make death easy.”

“Go back with me to Sandal-Side, and see the squire:  he may listen to you now.”

“Never more!  It was cruel of father to take my marriage in such a way.  He turned my life’s joy into a crime, cursed every hour that was left me.”

“People used to be so intense—­’a few strong feelings,’ as Mr. Wordsworth says—­too strong for ordinary life.  We really can’t afford to love and hate and suffer in such a teetotal way now; but the squire came from the Middle Ages.  This is a dreadfully hot place, Harry.”

“Yes, it is.  We were very much deceived in it.  I bought it; and we dreamed of vineyards and milk and wine, and a long, happy, simple life together.  Nothing has prospered with us.  We were swindled in the house and land.  The signor knows nothing about vines.  He was born here, and wanted to come back and be a great man.”  And as he spoke he laughed hysterically, and took Julius into an inner room.  “I don’t want Beatrice to hear that I am out of money.  She does not know I am destitute.  That sorrow, at least, I have kept from her.”

“Harry, I am going to make you a proposal.  I want to be kind and just to you.  I want to put you beyond the need of any one’s help.  Answer me one question truly.  If your father dies, what will you do?”

“You said he was getting better.  For God’s sake, do not speak of his death.”

“I am supposing a case.  You would then be squire of Sandal-Side.  Would you return there with Beatrice?”

“Ah, no!  I know what those Dalesmen are.  My father’s feelings were only their feelings intensified by his relation to me.  They would look upon me as my father’s murderer, and Beatrice as an accessory to the deed.”

“Still you would be squire of Sandal-Side.”

“Mother would have to take my place, or Charlotte.  I have thought of that.  I could not bear to sit in father’s chair, and go up and down the house.  I should see him always.  I should hear continually that awful cry with which he fell.  It fills, even here, all the spaces of my memory and my dreams.  I cannot go back to Sandal-Side.  Nothing could take me back, not even my mother.”

“Then listen, I am the heir failing you.”

“No, no:  there is my son Michael.”

Julius was stunned for a moment.  “Oh, yes!  The child is a boy, then?”

“It is a boy.  What were you going to say?”

“I was going to ask you to sell your rights to me for ten thousand pounds.  It would be better for you to have a sum like that in your hand at once, than to trust to dribbling remittances sent now and then by women in charge.  You could invest that sum to noble purpose in America, become a citizen of the country, and found an American line, as my father has founded an Indian one.”