"It's a very considerable fortune. As I have said, Miss Driver regards Margaret Octon as in the place of her own daughter. Miss Driver thought it only right that these circumstances should be placed before you as possibly bearing on the decision you felt it your duty to make yourself, or to recommend to your son." "Why does she do it?" he asked abruptly. "I've just given you the reason which I was directed to give. I wasn't commissioned to give any other. She regards Miss Octon in the light of an only child--the natural object of her bounty and, in due course of time, her natural successor." "We met once at Hatcham Ford, Mr. Austin," he said abruptly. "You remember? I think you knew pretty well the state of things then existing between Miss Driver and myself? I've charged you with possessing that knowledge before. That piece of knowledge may enable you to understand how the present proposition affects me. This isn't all love for Margaret Octon." "No, not all love for Margaret. But now you're asking me for my opinion, not for my message." "I didn't mean it as a question. But I see that you agree with me. Then you may understand that I can feel no gratitude for this offer. It--and consequently the arrangement of which it is a part--would transform everything here. It would accomplish the task which I haven't even had the courage to try to accomplish. It would blot out my great failure. But, coming whence it does and why it does, I can feel no gratitude for it." "It would be very far from Miss Driver's thoughts to expect anything of the kind." Suddenly he pushed back his chair, rose to his feet, and went to the window, impatiently letting one of the ugly brown blinds fly up to the ceiling by a tug at its cord. He stood there two or three minutes. His back was still toward me when he spoke again. "I've been a steward more than an owner--a caretaker, I should rather say. This would make my son and his son after him owners again. It's the restoration of our house." His voice sank a little. "And it would come through her and Leonard Octon!" Silence came again for a while; then he turned round and faced me. "I've no right to decide this question. She has taken the decision out of my hand by this. I have memories, resentments, what I think to be wrongs and humiliations. Perhaps I have cause for thinking so." "I wasn't sent here to deny that, Lord Fillingford. If that hadn't been so, not I should have been here, but she who sent me." "And so," he went on slowly, "I'm no judge. I should sin against my conscience if I were to judge. The question is not for me--let her go to Amyas himself."