My father had stationed himself in the background.  Mention of the Will caught his ears, and he commenced shaking my aunt Dorothy’s note, blinking and muttering at a great rate, and pressing his temples.

‘I do not read a word of this,’ he said,—­’upon my honour, not a word; and I know it is her handwriting.  That Will!—­only, for the love of heaven, madam,’—­he bowed vaguely to Janet ’not a syllable of this to the princess, or we are destroyed.  I have a great bell in my head, or I would say more.  Hearing is out of the question.’

Janet gazed piteously from him to me.

To kill the deer and be sorry for the suffering wretch is common.

I begged my father to walk along the carriage-drive.  He required that the direction should be pointed out accurately, and promptly obeyed me, saying:  ’I back you, remember.  I should certainly be asleep now but for this extraordinary bell.’  After going some steps, he turned to shout ‘Gong,’ and touched his ear.  He walked loosely, utterly unlike the walk habitual to him even recently in Paris.

‘Has he been ill?’ Janet asked.

’He won’t see the doctor; the symptoms threaten apoplexy or paralysis, I ’m told.  Let us finish.  You were aware that you were to inherit Riversley?’

‘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.