’Hum!  I see he does not name one very important event that has befallen him since he left you,’ said Mr. Gibson, seizing on the first words that came.  ’I believe I’m committing a breach of confidence on one side, but I’m going to keep the promise I made the last time I was here.  I find there is something—­something of the kind you apprehended—­you understand—­between him and my step-daughter, Cynthia Kirkpatrick.  He called at our house to wish us good-by, while waiting for the London coach, found her alone, and spoke to her.  They don’t call it an engagement, but of course it is one.’

‘Give me back the letter,’ said the squire, in a constrained kind of voice.  Then he read it again, as if he had not previously mastered its contents, and as if there might be some sentence or sentences he had overlooked.

‘No!’ he said at last, with a sigh.  ’He tells me nothing about it.  Lads may play at confidences with their fathers, but they keep a deal back.’  The squire appeared more disappointed at not having heard of this straight from Roger than displeased at the fact itself, Mr. Gibson thought.  But he let him take his time.

‘He’s not the eldest son,’ continued the squire, talking as it were to himself.  ’But it’s not the match I should have planned for him.  How came you, sir,’ said he, firing round on Mr. Gibson, suddenly—­’to say when you were last here, that there was nothing between my sons and either of your girls?  Why, this must have been going on all the time!’

’I am afraid it was.  But I was as ignorant about it as the babe unborn.  I only heard of it on the evening of the day of Roger’s departure.’

‘And that’s a week ago, sir.  What’s kept you quiet ever since?’

‘I thought that Roger would tell you himself.’

’That shows you’ve no sons.  More than half their life is unknown to their fathers.  Why, Osborne there, we live together—­that’s to say, we have our meals together, and we sleep under the same roof—­and yet—­ Well! well! life is as God has made it.  You say it’s not an engagement yet?  But I wonder what I’m doing?  Hoping for my lad’s disappointment in the folly he’s set his heart on—­and just when he’s been helping me.  Is it a folly, or is it not?  I ask you, Gibson, for you must know this girl.  She has not much money, I suppose?’

‘About thirty pounds a year, at my pleasure during her mother’s life.’

’Whew!  It’s well he’s not Osborne.  They’ll have to wait.  What family is she of?  None of ’em in trade, I reckon, from her being so poor?’

’I believe her father was grandson of a certain Sir Gerald Kirkpatrick.  Her mother tells me it is an old baronetcy.  I know nothing of such things.’

’That’s something.  I do know something of such things, as you are pleased to call them.  I like honourable blood.’

Mr. Gibson could not help saying, ’But I’m afraid that only one-eighth of Cynthia’s blood is honourable; I know nothing further of her relations excepting the fact that her father was a curate.’