‘Yes, Riversley, Harry; I knew that; I knew nothing else.’

‘The old place was left to you that you might bar my father out?’

‘I gave my word.’

‘You pledged it—­swore?’

‘No.’

’Well, you’ve done your worst, my dear.  If the axe were to fall on your neck for it, you would still refuse, would you not?’

Janet answered softly:  ‘I believe so.’

‘Then, good-bye,’ said I.

That feminine softness and its burden of unalterable firmness pulled me two ways, angering me all the more that I should feel myself susceptible to a charm which came of spiritual rawness rather than sweetness; for she needed not to have made the answer in such a manner; there was pride in it; she liked the soft sound of her voice while declaring herself invincible:  I could see her picturing herself meek but fixed.

‘Will you go, Harry?  Will you not take Riversley?’ she said.

I laughed.

‘To spare you the repetition of the dilemma?’

‘No, Harry; but this might be done.’

’But—­my fullest thanks to you for your generosity:  really!  I speak in earnest:  it would be decidedly against your grandada’s wishes, seeing that he left the Grange to you, and not to me.’

‘Grandada’s wishes!  I cannot carry out all his wishes,’ she sighed.

‘Are you anxious to?’

We were on the delicate ground, as her crimson face revealed to me that she knew as well as I.

I, however, had little delicacy in leading her on it.  She might well feel that she deserved some wooing.

I fancied she was going to be overcome, going to tremble and show herself ready to fall on my bosom, and I was uncertain of the amount of magnanimity in store there.

She replied calmly, ‘Not immediately.’

‘You are not immediately anxious to fulfil his wishes?’

‘Harry, I find it hard to do those that are thrust on me.’

’But, as a matter of serious obligation, you would hold yourself bound by and by to perform them all?’

‘I cannot speak any further of my willingness, Harry.’

’The sense of duty is evidently always sufficient to make you act upon the negative—­to deny, at least?’

‘Yes, I daresay,’ said Janet.

We shook hands like a pair of commercial men.

I led my father to Bulsted.  He was too feverish to remain there.  In the evening, after having had a fruitless conversation with my aunt Dorothy upon the event of the day, I took him to London that he might visit his lawyers, who kindly consented to treat him like doctors, when I had arranged to make over to them three parts of my annuity, and talked of his Case encouragingly; the effect of which should not have astonished me.  He closed a fit of reverie resembling his drowsiness, by exclaiming:  ’Richie will be indebted to his dad for his place in the world after all!’ Temporarily, he admitted, we must