"And as your sister would you let her come here,--to us?" He sat silent for awhile, thinking, and she waited patiently for his answer. But she spoke again before he answered her. "I am well aware that you know all my history, Mr. Belton." "I shouldn't tell it her, if you mean that, though she were my sister. If she were my wife I should tell her." "And why your wife?" "Because then I should be sure it would do no harm." "Then I find that you can be generous, Mr. Belton. But she knows it all as well as you do." "I did not tell her." "Nor did I;--but I should have done so had not Captain Aylmer been before me. And now tell me whether I could ask her to come here." "It would be useless, as she is going to Aylmer Castle." "But she is going there simply to find a home,--having no other." "That is not so, Mrs. Askerton. She has a home as perfectly her own as any woman in the land. Belton Castle is hers, to do what she may please with it. She can live here if she likes it, and nobody can say a word to her. She need not go to Aylmer Castle to look for a home." "You mean you would lend her the house?" "It is hers." "I do not understand you, Mr. Belton." "It does not signify;--we will say no more about it." "And you think she likes going to Lady Aylmer's?" "How should I say what she likes?" Then there was another pause before Mrs. Askerton spoke again. "I can tell you one thing," she said: "she does not like him." "That is her affair." "But she should be taught to know her own mind before she throws herself away altogether. You would not wish your cousin to marry a man whom she does not love because at one time she had come to think that she loved him. That is the truth of it, Mr. Belton. If she goes to Aylmer Castle she will marry him,--and she will be an unhappy woman always afterwards. If you would sanction her coming here for a few days, I think all that would be cured. She would come in a moment, if you advised her."