"If you wasn't here, I'd have runned away long ago. For a little bit, after that cruel come-along-of-it, I wouldn't have minded to die. Now that's passed; but you, who never did such a thing, can't tell what it is to know that you're fretting and galling two other women. And Mrs. Bamsey and Jane have a right to be fretted and galled by me. I can well understand, without their looks, how I must be to them; and 'tis a sharp thorn in your flesh to be hated, and it's making me miserable." He had not guessed she much felt this side of the position. "You'm growing up, I see, like everybody else," he said. "I forget that I can't have it both ways, and can't have you a loving, watchful daughter and a child too. And if you can think for me, as you do so wonderful, then you'm old enough to feel for yourself, of course. Still you'm so parlous young in some ways, that it ain't strange I still think of you a child in everyway. I suppose you must go and I mustn't find nothing against no more. And yet----" He broke off, his mind upon Maynard. While he was hesitating and wondering whether he should name the man, Dinah saved him the trouble. "Only this morning coming home from Falcon Farm I met Lawrence--Lawrence Maynard and he--even he, an outsider so to say, said he thought I'd be better far ways off. And I well know it. I didn't ought to be breathing the same air as Johnny. It ain't fair to him, especially when you know he's not taking it just like I meant it. And I wouldn't say it's right, foster-father." He, however, was more concerned for the moment with the other man than his own son. "Johnny's beginning to understand. His good sense will come to help him," he answered; "but when you say 'Lawrence Maynard,' Dinah--what do you say? Why for has he troubled his head about your affairs?" "You like him?" she answered. "Granted. And so do you seemingly. And how much do you like him? Do you like him as much as I think you do, Dinah?" She was astonished but pleased. "I'm glad you ask me that; but I hope Mrs. Bamsey and Jane----?" "So do I. No, they haven't marked nothing; or if they have, they've hid it from me very close. But Faith wouldn't hide nothing. Tell me." She hesitated. "What do you think?" she asked. "I think you care about the man." "I love him then." "Ah!" "It sounds a fearful thing spoke out naked. But truth's truth, and I'm very thankful to tell you. Don't you call it wicked nor nothing like that. It only happened a very little while--not till long, long after I dropped Johnny. But it has happened; and now I know I never loved dear Johnny a morsel." He reflected. "The man himself told you to go--Maynard, I mean? What was in his mind when he said that?" "I've been wondering. It ought to have made me sad; but it hasn't. Ought it to have made me sad?" "Has Lawrence Maynard----? What about his side?"