The Squire went out for his walk that day full of thought. He was a man who at the bottom of his heart was a kind man, and one with a conscience, a conscience of the kind which sometimes gives its possessor a great deal of trouble. He asked himself what was his duty to his sister’s child? not to plunge her into poverty and the cares of life in order to get rid of the responsibility from his own shoulders. Oh no, that could never be his duty. But, at the same time, on the other hand, to leave her in the care of a good husband was the best thing that could happen to any girl. He knew enough of Mr. Asquith to be sure that he would be a good husband. He was a good man, a man quite superior to the ordinary type; though the curate was not very popular at the Hall, still the Squire had perception enough to know this--that he was above the average, not at all a common man. And he must be very much in love with Mary, knowing that she had no money and no expectations, to have subjected himself to such a cross-examination as Mr. Prescott knew he had inflicted, on her account. Enlightened by his wife’s remarks, the Squire thought the matter all over again from another point of view. The man was very poor, but then Mary was very simple in her tastes, and if the girl really preferred to marry him in a cottage, rather than to live on at the Hall, perhaps it was true that her uncle had no right to cross her. It was not exactly, he said to himself, as if he were her father. She had always been a docile little thing, but his wife seemed to think that there was a possibility that in this matter Mary might not be so docile, that she might take her own way; and if she did so there would be a breach in the family, and he would be compelled to withdraw his protection from her, and her mother’s story might be enacted over again. Mary’s mother’s story had not been happy. She too had been asked in marriage by a poor man, and had been refused by her father. And she had run away with her lover, and had suffered more than Mr. Prescott liked to think of before she died. He said to himself now that perhaps if his father had consented, if they had tried to help Burnet on instead of letting him sink, things might have been different. Anyhow, he would never allow that episode to be repeated. And if Mary would marry Mr. Asquith, she must do it with the consent of her people, and everything that could be done must be done for her husband. He went across the park to the rectory and consulted his brother Hugh on the subject, who was first amused and then shook his head. “I knew there would be mischief when I saw what kind of a man the fellow was,” the rector said. “What kind of a man! Why, he is not a lady’s man at all, he plays no tennis, he never comes up in the afternoon, he seems to care nothing for society. Neither John nor the girls can make anything of him.”