“Mr Dale, I have begrudged you nothing of this.”

“I am hurt;—­I am hurt,” he continued.  And she was surprised by his look of pain even more than by the unaccustomed warmth of his words.  “What you have said has, I have known, been the case all along.  But though I had felt it to be so, I own that I am hurt by your open words.”

“Because I have said that my own children must ever be my own?”

“Ah, you have said more than that.  You and the girls have been living here, close to me, for—­how many years is it now?—­and during all those years there has grown up for me no kindly feeling.  Do you think that I cannot hear, and see, and feel?  Do you suppose that I am a fool and do not know?  As for yourself you would never enter this house if you did not feel yourself constrained to do so for the sake of appearances.  I suppose it is all as it should be.  Having no children of my own, I owe the duty of a parent to my nieces; but I have no right to expect from them in return either love, regard, or obedience.  I know I am keeping you here against your will, Mary.  I won’t do so any longer.”  And he made a sign to her that she was to depart.

As she rose from her seat her heart was softened towards him.  In these latter days he had shown much kindness to the girls,—­a kindness that was more akin to the gentleness of love than had ever come from him before.  Lily’s fate had seemed to melt even his sternness, and he had striven to be tender in his words and ways.  And now he spoke as though he had loved the girls, and had loved them in vain.  Doubtless he had been a disagreeable neighbour to his sister-in-law, making her feel that it was never for her personally that he had opened his hand.  Doubtless he had been moved by an unconscious desire to undermine and take upon himself her authority with her own children.  Doubtless he had looked askance at her from the first day of her marriage with his brother.  She had been keenly alive to all this since she had first known him, and more keenly alive to it than ever since the failure of those efforts she had made to live with him on terms of affection, made during the first year or two of her residence at the Small House.  But, nevertheless, in spite of all, her heart bled for him now.  She had gained her victory over him, having fully held her own position with her children; but now, that he complained that he had been beaten in the struggle, her heart bled for him.

“My brother,” she said, and as she spoke she offered him her hands, “it may be that we have not thought as kindly of each other as we should have done.”

“I have endeavoured,” said the old man.  “I have endeavoured—­” And then he stopped, either hindered by some excess of emotion, or unable to find the words which were necessary for the expression of his meaning.

“Let us endeavour once again,—­both of us.”

“What, begin again at near seventy!  No, Mary, there is no more beginning again for me.  All this shall make no difference to the girls.  As long as I am here they shall have the house.  If they marry, I will do for them what I can.  I believe Bernard is much in earnest in his suit, and if Bell will listen to him, she shall still be welcomed here as mistress of Allington.  What you have said shall make no difference;—­but as to beginning again, it is simply impossible.”