“Oh, sir, Lucy loves me and I love her, and——­”

“Love must learn to wait—­to be patient and to be satisfied with hopes.  I am weary, and we will bid you good night.”

There was something so definite and positive in this good night that Harry felt it to be irresistible, and with an air of disappointment made his departure.  At the outer door Lugur said, “I do not lack sympathy with you, Mr. Hatton, in your desire to hurry your marriage forward, but you must understand that there will be necessary delays.  If you cannot bear the strain of waiting and of patiently looking forward, you are mistaken in the quality of your love and you had better give it up at once.”

“No, sir.  Right or wrong, it is my love, and Lucy is the only woman who will ever bring joy or sorrow to me.”

Lugur did not answer, but his tall, dark figure standing with his hand on the half-shut door impressed Harry painfully with the hopelessness of further argument.  He bowed silently, but as he passed through the little gate the sound of the hastily closed door followed him up the hill to Hatton Hall.  Lugur went into the parlor to look for his daughter; she had gone to her room.  Some feeling of maidenly reserve had led her to take this step.  She never asked herself why or wherefore; she only felt that it would be good for her to be alone, and the need had been so urgent that she forgot her father’s usual good-night kiss and blessing.  Lugur did not call her, but he felt the omission keenly.  It was the first change; he knew that it prefigured many greater ones, and he was for the hour stunned by the suddenness of the sorrow he had to face.  But Lugur had a stout heart, a heart made strong and sure by many sufferings and by one love.

He sat motionless for an hour or more; his life was concentered in thought, and thought does not always require physical movement.  Indeed, intense thought on any question is, as a rule, still and steady as a rock.  And Lugur was thinking of the one subject which was the prime mover of his earthly life—­thinking of his daughter and trying to foresee the fate he had practically chosen for her, wondering if in this matter he had been right or wrong.  He had told himself that Lucy must marry someone, and that Henry Hatton was the best of all her suitors.  Thirsk he hardly took into consideration; but there was young Bradley and Squire Ashby and the Wesleyan minister, and his own assistant in the school.  He had seen that these men loved her, each in his own way, but he liked none of them.  Weighed in his balance, they were all wanting.

Neither was Henry Hatton without fault; but the Hatton family was good to its root, as far as he knew or could hear tell, and at least he had been frankly honest both with his daughter and himself.  He found strength and comfort in this reflection, and finally through it reached the higher attitude, which made him rise to his feet, clasp his hands, and lift his face with whispered prayer to the Father and Lover of souls.  Leaving Lucy in His care, his heart was at rest, and he lay down in peace and slept.