‘I believe you, Edgar,’ answered Sir Vernon. ‘When a man of your mould is in love, filthy lucre has very little weight with him. There will be a residue, I have no doubt, when I am gone—a few thousands; but the bulk of my property was settled when I married Lina’s mother. I suppose you know that Lina is very pleased at the idea of having you for a brother-in-law?’ ‘I know nothing, except that Daphne has consented to be my wife.’ ‘Lina announced the fact to me this morning at breakfast. Daphne was not down—a headache—a little natural shyness, I daresay. Lina is very glad—very much your friend.’ ‘She has always been that,’ faltered Edgar, looking back with half-incredulous wonder to the time when a word from Lina had been enough to stir the pulses of his heart, when the mention of her name was music. ‘I think I cannot do better for you than leave your happiness in Lina’s care,’ said Sir Vernon. ‘Daphne will not be married first, of course.’ ‘Might they not be married on the same day?’ suggested Edgar. ‘Lina is to be married directly she comes of age, is she not?’ ‘That has been proposed,’ said Sir Vernon reluctantly, ‘but I am in no hurry to lose my daughter, and I don’t think Lina is eager to leave me. In my precarious state of health it will be hard for me to bear the pain of parting.’ ‘But, my dear Sir Vernon, she will be so near you—quite close at hand,’ remonstrated Edgar, inwardly revolting against this selfishness, which would delay his own happiness as well as Goring’s. ‘Don’t talk about it, Turchill,’ exclaimed Sir Vernon testily. ‘You don’t understand—you can’t enter into my feelings. My daughter is all the world to me now. What will she be when she is a wife, a mother, with a hundred different interests and anxieties plucking at her heart-strings? Why, I daresay a teething-baby would be more to her than her father, if I were on my death-bed.’ ‘Indeed, Sir Vernon, you wrong her.’ ‘I daresay I do. But I am devoured with jealousy when I think of her belonging to anyone else. It is the penalty she pays for having been perfect as a daughter. Our virtues, as well as our vices, are often scourges for our own backs. However, when the time comes I must bear the blow with a smiling countenance, that she may never know how hard I am hit. Only you can imagine I don’t want to hasten the evil hour. And now, as I think we understand each other, you may be off to pleasanter society than mine.’ Edgar instantly availed himself of this permission, and hastened to the morning-room, where Madoline was seated at her work-table, while Daphne twisted herself round and round on the music-stool, now talking to her sister, now playing a few bars of one of Schumann’s ‘_Kinderstücken_,’ anon picking out a popular melody she had heard the faithful Bink whistle as he weeded his flower-beds.