“But the fact is,” said Mrs Dale, speaking in a low tone, and having well considered what she was about to say, “that Bernard is not exactly the same as your son.”

“Why not?” said the squire.  “I have even offered to settle the property on him if he will leave the service.”

“You do not owe him so much as you would owe your son;—­and, therefore, he does not owe you as much as he would owe his father.”

“If you mean that I cannot constrain him, I know that well enough.  As regards money, I have offered to do for him quite as much as any father would feel called upon to do for an only son.”

“I hope you don’t think me ungrateful,” said Bernard.

“No, I do not; but I think you unmindful.  I have nothing more to say about it, however;—­not about that.  If you should marry—­” And then he stopped himself, feeling that he could not go on in Bell’s presence.

“If he should marry,” said Mrs Dale, “it may well be that his wife would like a house of her own.”

“Wouldn’t she have this house?” said the squire, angrily.  “Isn’t it big enough?  I only want one room for myself, and I’d give up that if it were necessary.”

“That’s nonsense,” said Mrs Dale.

“It isn’t nonsense,” said the squire.

“You’ll be squire of Allington for the next twenty years,” said Mrs Dale.  “And as long as you are the squire, you’ll be master of this house; at least, I hope so.  I don’t approve of monarchs abdicating in favour of young people.”

“I don’t think Uncle Christopher would look at all well like Charles the Fifth,” said Lily.

“I would always keep a cell for you, my darling, if I did,” said the squire, regarding her with that painful, special tenderness.  Lily, who was sitting next to Mrs Dale, put her hand out secretly and got hold of her mother’s, thereby indicating that she did not intend to occupy the cell offered to her by her uncle; or to look to him as the companion of her monastic seclusion.  After that there was nothing more then said as to Bernard’s prospects.

“Mrs Hearn is dining at the vicarage, I suppose?” asked the squire.

“Yes; she went in after church,” said Bell.  “I saw her go with Mrs Boyce.”

“She told me she never would dine with them again after dark in winter,” said Mrs Dale.  “The last time she was there, the boy let the lamp blow out as she was going home, and she lost her way.  The truth was, she was angry because Mr Boyce didn’t go with her.”

“She’s always angry,” said the squire.  “She hardly speaks to me now.  When she paid her rent the other day to Jolliffe, she said she hoped it would do me much good; as though she thought me a brute for taking it.”

“So she does,” said Bernard.

“She’s very old, you know,” said Bell.

“I’d give her the house for nothing, if I were you, uncle,” said Lily.

“No, my dear; if you were me you would not.  I should be very wrong to do so.  Why should Mrs Hearn have her house for nothing, any more than her meat or her clothes?  It would be much more reasonable were I to give her so much money into her hand yearly; but it would be wrong in me to do so, seeing that she is not an object of charity;—­and it would be wrong in her to take it.”