"Then now to my second question, sir," Woolley went on, tapping with his fingers on the table. But try as he might, he could not quite rise to the old level of superiority, he could not drive the flush from his cheek or still his pulse. "What is your daughter's answer? From something which has passed between us I conclude it to be unfavourable to me." "Indeed?" the doctor said, looking at him blankly. "But, favourable or unfavourable," Woolley continued, "I must have it betimes. You bade me go away and give her a month to think over it. I have done so, and I am back. Now I ask, What is her answer?" "Well," the doctor said, rubbing his hands in great perplexity, "I have not--I am not sure that I am prepared to say. You must give me a little more time--indeed you must. Let us say until the day after to-morrow. I will sound her and give you a decisive answer then--after breakfast, and here if you like." The suitor restrained himself. He longed to reject the proposal. But he did love her in his way, and at the sound of her father's uncertain utterance hope began to tell her flattering tale. "Very well!" he said. "But you understand, I hope," he continued, his manner curiously made up of shame and defiance, "the alternative, sir? If I am not to be allied to you, it will no longer suit me to have my money tied up here, and I must have it--the sooner the better." "Well, well," the poor doctor said testily, "we will talk about that, Woolley, when the time comes." There seemed to be nothing more to say. Yet Woolley lingered by the table, fingering the things on it without looking up. Perhaps an impulse to withdraw his threat and end the interview more kindly was working in him. If so, however, he crushed it down, and presently he took himself off. When his step ceased to sound in the passage the doctor drew a sigh of relief. It has been said that travellers along the moorland road which passes near the Old Hall--a road once frequented, but now little trodden, save by tramps--that travellers along it see nothing of the house. The house lies below the surface. In like manner a visitor arriving at the Old Hall itself during the next thirty-six hours would have observed nothing strange, though there was so much below the surface. The assistant contrived to be abroad at his work during the greater part of the intervening day. He judged that love-making would help him little now. The doctor rubbed his hands and talked fast to preserve appearances; and Pleasance as well as her suitor seemed to regret their joint outbreak. She was civil to him, if somewhat cold. So that when he knocked at the door of the little room--after a sleepless night in which he had pondered long how he should act at the coming interview--he had some hopes. He was feeling almost amiable.