But the psychical mystery is how she could have come to love her father so. Yes, as the reader already knows, she did love him, and love him to that extent that she was willing to sacrifice her own happiness to his ambition, and marry a man whom she loathed if she did actually not detest. A bachelor, with no expenses worth naming, Richards had saved quite a small fortune in his time; and when he came to find out that Keane was going positively to sell his daughter to the worn-out _roué_ Sir Digby, that for his own advancement he might see her ere long a lord's wife, Richards thumped his fist down on his desk--he was alone at the time--till even the big ink-bottle leaped an inch up from the table. "I'll save that darling child," he had said, "if I spend every penny I have earned, and lose my life into the bargain." He smiled to himself a moment after. "Everything is fair in love and war," he said: "I'll play a game. The cause is good. Yes, Jack Mackenzie, my open-hearted, frank, brave boy, you shall marry Gerty. I have said it--you--_shall_." He laughed aloud next minute at his own enthusiasm. "What a capital actor I should have made!" he thought. "How beautifully I could have done heavy fathers!" Still waters run deep, and Richards was astute, though perhaps he did not look it. So he began at once to shuffle his cards for the game he was about to play--a game which he rightly judged was to be one of life or death. For he shuddered to think of the living death to which the selfishness of her miserly, ambitious father intended condemning Gerty. "My baby, bless her sweet face," he added, "shall never marry that bleach-eyed old Digby." Then he shut his ledger with a bang, and went for a walk in the park, where he could think. But the Mackenzies would lose the fine old house and property called Grantley Hall. Keane would assuredly foreclose. Then the place would be Keane's or Gerty's, it was much the same. Keane really meant it to be Sir Digby's and Gerty's, while he, Keane, should live and be honoured and respected there--his son-in-law a lord. Richards thought he must try by hook or by crook to prevent his partner from foreclosing, if only for the following reason: if Grantley Hall once passed into Keane's hands, much though Gerty and Jack loved each other, the latter, being a Mackenzie and a Scot, would be far too proud to propose marriage, seeing that in doing so his desires might be misconstrued, and people would naturally say he was simply marrying back his own property. The general had told his children that Keane was his only creditor. Yes, because in order to make sure of the estate, the old lawyer had bought up all the others. He could thus come down upon the brave but reckless Scottish soldier, like an avalanche from a mountain's brow.