Then after a few questions and answers as to his accident and merciful recovery there came a pause. At length he broke it. “I have come to see you both,” he said with a faint nervous smile, “about the letters you wrote me. If my condition had allowed I should have come before, but it would not.” “Yes,” said the Squire attentively, while Ida folded her hands in her lap and sat still with her eyes fixed upon the fire. “It seems,” he went on, “that the old proverb has applied to my case as to so many others—being absent I have suffered. I understand from these letters that my engagement to you, Miss de la Molle, is broken off.” She made a motion of assent. “And that it is broken off on the ground that having been forced by a combination of circumstances which I cannot enter into to transfer the mortgages to Mr. Quest, consequently I broke my bargain with you?” “Yes,” said Ida. “Very well then, I come to tell you both that I am ready to find the money to meet those mortgages and to pay them off in full.” “Ah!” said the Squire. “Also that I am ready to do what I offered to do before, and which, as my father is now dead, I am perfectly in a position to do, namely, to settle two hundred thousand pounds absolutely upon Ida, and indeed generally to do anything else that she or you may wish,” and he looked at the Squire. “It is no use looking to me for an answer,” said he with some irritation. “I have no voice in the matter.” He turned to Ida, who put her hand before her face and shook her head. “Perhaps,” said Edward, somewhat bitterly, “I should not be far wrong if I said that Colonel Quaritch has more to do with your change of mind than the fact of the transfer of these mortgages.” She dropped her hand and looked him full in the face. “You are quite right, Mr. Cossey,” she said boldly. “Colonel Quaritch and I are attached to each other, and we hope one day to be married.” “Confound that Quaritch,” growled the Squire beneath his breath. Edward winced visibly at this outspoken statement. “Ida,” he said, “I make one last appeal to you. I am devoted to you with all my heart; so devoted that though it may seem foolish to say so, especially before your father, I really think I would rather not have recovered from my accident than that I should have recovered for this. I will give you everything that a woman can want, and my money will make your family what it was centuries ago, the greatest in the country side. I don’t pretend to have been a saint—perhaps you may have heard something against me in that way—or to be anything out of the common. I am only an ordinary every-day man, but I am devoted to you. Think, then, before you refuse me altogether.” “I have thought, Mr. Cossey,” answered Ida almost passionately: “I have thought until I am tired of thinking, and I do not consider it fair that you should press me like this, especially before my father.”