The Marquis had been walking about the room impatiently, while his didactic son was struggling to explain his own theory as to those words _noblesse oblige_. Nothing could so plainly express the feelings of the Marquis on the occasion as that illustration of his as to the dog's hind legs. But he was a little ashamed of it, and did not dare to use it twice on the same occasion. He fretted and fumed, and would have stopped Hampstead had it been possible; but Hampstead was irrepressible when he had become warm on his own themes, and his father knew that he must listen on to the bitter end. "I won't have her go to Hendon at all," he said, when his son had finished. "Then you will understand little of her nature,--or of mine. Roden will not come near her there. I can hardly be sure that he will not do so here. Here Fanny will feel that she is being treated as an enemy." "You have no right to say so." "There she will know that you have done much to promote her happiness. I will give you my assurance that she will neither see him nor write to him. She has promised as much to me herself, and I can trust her." "Why should she be so anxious to leave her natural home?" "Because," said Hampstead boldly, "she has lost her natural mother." The Marquis frowned awfully at hearing this. "I have not a word to say against my stepmother as to myself. I will not accuse her of anything as to Fanny,--except that they thoroughly misunderstand each other. You must see it yourself, sir." The Marquis had seen it very thoroughly. "And Mr. Greenwood has taken upon himself to speak to her,--which was, I think, very impertinent." "I never authorized him." "But he did. Her ladyship no doubt authorized him. The end of it is that Fanny is watched. Of course she will not bear a continuation of such misery. Why should she? It will be better that she should come to me than be driven to go off with her lover." Before the week was over the Marquis had yielded. Hendon Hall was to be given up altogether to Lord Hampstead, and his sister was to be allowed to live with him as the mistress of his house. She was to come in the course of next month, and remain there at any rate till the spring. There would be a difficulty about the hunting, no doubt, but that Hampstead if necessary was prepared to abandon for the season. He thought that perhaps he might be able to run down twice a week to the Vale of Aylesbury, going across from Hendon to the Willesden Junction. He would at any rate make his sister's comfort the first object of his life, and would take care that in doing so George Roden should be excluded altogether from the arrangement.