He turned round quickly. "If it was anything of that sort," he answered, "it was because I did not think myself good enough. My people led useless, extravagant lives, and my own has not been much better. I have felt ashamed that you should know anything concerning us, and it wasn't necessary for our contentment here." "No," she said, slowly, "it wasn't." "Nor is it any more necessary to tell people our affairs now than it has been hitherto. If Cyril dies I shall not alter my name--what good would a title be to me? I have no son to come after me, no one at all to inherit anything except Margaret, for whom this doesn't matter." "I'm glad you've told Margaret," Mrs. Vincent answered. She was silent for a moment, and then went on, thoughtfully: "She is changing in herself; I can feel it. She'll not be content here always. She is stretching her wings already, like a young bird that is waiting to fly." "Well, at any rate, she had better stay quietly here till my return," he said. "By-the-way, an old friend of mine has taken the vicarage house--Sir George Stringer; he is sure to come over and see you." "We are getting very grand, father," she said, ruefully, resenting it a little in her heart. She had been so well content with her own station in life, and had never wished to see it either lifted or lowered; the first seemed undignified to her, the last would have meant humiliation. "It doesn't make any difference, dear," he said. "We were a worthless, ramshackling set, who put such privileges as we had under our feet; and as for me, I haven't even enough grace to take me to church on Sunday. I want to forget everything but the life of the last twenty years--you, and Margaret." She put her hands up slowly to his shoulders. "Father," she said, "you will never know what you have been to me, never in this world." "I do," he answered; "I know--well." "And I couldn't bear that you should be anything but just what you have been always." "I never shall be anything else," he answered, and stooped and kissed her. "We won't tell Hannah about this," he went on, "and I don't suppose Margaret will. There's no reason to make a mystery of it; if it comes out, well and good, but if not we can be silent." "I'd rather she didn't know," Mrs. Vincent answered, "unless she finds it out; she'd only be talking and thinking things I wouldn't bear." Meanwhile Towsey and Hannah were clearing away the tea things: Margaret went out to the porch and looked at the garden and the beechwood she loved rising high beyond it. Mr. Garratt cast a quick glance towards the kitchen, and in a moment he was by her side. "Are you inclined for a little stroll, Miss Vincent?" His eyes said more than his words. She went a step forward and stood by a lilac bush. "No," she said, "I am going in directly."