For a full minute no man spoke, while in Mr. Lyddon's mind proceeded a strange battle of ideas. Will's audacity awakened less resentment than might have been foreseen. The man had bent before the shock of his daughter's secret marriage and was now returning to his customary mental condition. Any great altitude of love or extremity of hate was beyond Mr. Lyddon's calibre. Life slipped away and left his forehead smooth. Sorrow brought no great scars, joy no particular exaltation. This temperament he had transmitted to Phoebe; and now she came into his mind and largely influenced him. A dozen times he opened his mind to say "No," but did not say it. Personal amiability could hardly have overcome natural dislike of Blanchard at such a moment, but the unexpected usually happens when weak natures are called upon to make sudden decisions; and though such may change their resolve again and again at a later date and before new aspects of the problem, their first hasty determination will often be the last another had predicted from them. A very curious result accrued from Mr. Lyddon's mental conflict, and it was reached by an accidental train of thought. He told himself that his conclusion was generous to the extreme of the Christian ideal; he assured himself that few men so placed had ever before acted with such notable magnanimity; but under this repeated mental asseveration there spoke another voice which he stifled to the best of his power. The utterance of this monitor may best be judged from what followed. "If I gave you work you'd stand to it, Will Blanchard?" he asked at length. "Try me!" "Whatsoever it might be?" "Try me. Ban't for me to choose." "I will, then. Come to-morrow by five, an' Billy shall show 'e what's to do." It would be difficult to say which, of those who heard the miller's resolve received it with most astonishment. Will's voice was almost tremulous. "You'll never be sorry, never. I couldn't have hoped such a thing. Caan't think how I comed to ax it. An' yet--but I'll buckle to anything and everything, so help me. I'll think for 'e an' labour for 'e as no hireling that was ever born could, I will. An' you've done a big, grand-fashion thing, an' I'm yours, body an' bones, for it; an' you'll never regret it." The young man was really moved by an issue so unexpected. He had uttered his suggestion on the spur of the moment, as he uttered most things, and such a reception argued a greatness of heart and generosity of spirit quite unparalleled in his experience. So he departed wishing all good on Mr. Lyddon and meaning all good with his whole soul and strength. When he had gone the miller spoke; but contrary to custom, he did not look into Mr. Blee's face while so doing. "You'm astonished, Billy," he said, "an' so be I, come to think of it. But I'm gettin' tu auld to fret my life away with vain strife. I be gwaine to prove un. He'd stand to anything, eh? 'Twas his word." "An' well he might."