"Let me think before I answer you," he said, and then sat silent for two or three minutes. "Well," he said, at last, "I think you have a right to know. You may be sure that in any case I should before, for your sake, have done everything in my power towards arranging things amicably with him. Now, of course, that feeling is vastly stronger, and for my own sake as well as yours I should abstain from any action against him. Mind, at present I have only vague suspicions, but if those suspicions turn out true, it will be evident that your father has been pursuing a very tortuous policy, to put it no stronger, in order to gain possession of Fairclose. I cannot say definitely as yet what I shall do, but at present I incline to the opinion that I shall drop the matter altogether." "Not for my sake, Cuthbert," she said, firmly. "I have always felt uneasy about it. I can scarcely say why, but I am afraid it is so. Of course I know my father better than people in general do. I have known that he was not what he seemed to be. It has always been my sorest trouble, that we have never got on well together. He has never liked me, and I have not been able to respect him. I know that if he has done anything absolutely wrong--it seems terrible that I should even think such a thing possible--but if it has been so--I know you will not expose him." "We will not talk any more about it, dear," Cuthbert interrupted; "it is all the vaguest suspicion, so let us put it aside altogether now. Just at present I am a great deal too happy to give as much as a thought to unpleasant matters. We have to attend to the business of the hour, and you have the two years of love of which I have been deprived to make up for." "I am very, very glad, Cuthbert, that I was not in love with you then." "Why?" "Because we should have started all wrong. I don't think I should ever have come to look up to you and honor you as I do now. I should never have been cured of my silly ideas, and might even have thought that I had made some sort of sacrifice in giving up my plans. Besides, then you were what people call a good match, and now no one can think that it is not for love only." "Well, at any rate, Mary, we shall have between us enough to keep us out of the workhouse even if I turn out an absolute failure." "You know you won't do that." "I hope not, but at any rate one is liable to illness, to loss of sight, and all sorts of other things, and as we have between us four hundred a year we can manage very comfortably, even if I come to an end of my ardor for work and take to idleness again." "I am not afraid of that," she smiled, "after painting those two pictures, you could not stop painting. I don't think when anyone can do good work of any sort, he can get tired of it, especially when the work is art. My only fear is that I shan't get my fair share of your time." "Well, if I see you getting jealous, Mary, I have the means of reducing you to silence by a word."