"I will honour it for you. There has been enough, and too much, riding and walking, unless you are to ride and walk all your lives together. Good-morning!" "Squire, give me one hour?" "I will not." "A few minutes to explain." "I have told you that I would explain." "I never knew you unkind before. Have I offended you? Have I done anything which you do not approve?" "That is not the question. I will see you again--when you have seen your father." "You are very unkind, very unkind indeed, sir." "Maybe I am; but when the surgeon's knife is to use, there is no use pottering with drugs and fine speeches. It is the knife between you and Kate--or it is the ring;" and the word reminded him of the lost love gage, and made his face hard and stern. Then he turned from the young man, and had a momentary pleasure in the sound of his furious galloping in the other direction; for he was in a state of great turmoil. He had suddenly done a thing he had been wishing to do for a long time; and he was not satisfied. In short, passionate ejaculations, he tried to relieve himself of something wrong, and did not succeed. "He deserves it; he was all the time with that Other One,--day by day in the parks, night after night in the House and the opera; he gave her that ring--I'll swear he did; how else should she have it? My Kate is not going to be second-best--not if I can help it; what do I care for their dukedom?--confound the whole business! A man with a daughter to watch has a heart full of sorrow--and it is all her mother's fault!" Setting his steps to such aggravating opinions, he reached the Manor House and went into the parlour. Kate stood at the window in her riding dress. She had lost her usual fine composure, and was nervously tapping the wooden sill with the handle of her whip. On her father's entrance, she turned an anxious face to him, and asked, "Did you see anything of Piers, Father?" "I did. I have been having a bit of a talk with him." "Then he is at the door? I am so glad! I thought something was wrong!" "Stop, Kitty. He is not at the door. He has gone home. I sent him home. Now don't interrupt me. I made up my mind in London that he should not see you again until your engagement was recognised by his father and mother." "Should not see me again! Father!" "That is right." "But I must see him! I must see him! Where is mother?" "Mother thinks as I do, Kate." "Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?" "Go upstairs, and take off your habit, and think over things. You know quite well that such underhand courting--" "Piers is not underhand. He is as straight-forward as you are, Father." "There now! Don't cry. I won't have any crying about what is only right. Come here, Kitty. Thou knowest thy father loves every hair of thy head. Will he wrong thee? Will he give thee a moment's pain he can help? Kitty, I heard talk in London that fired me--I saw things that have to be explained." "Father, you will break my heart!"