At last the man she waited for came in smiling. One of those instincts which tell only a half-truth made him aware that the news he brought would greatly gratify her. 'Sir George Downing has won all along the line,' he said boyishly, while shaking hands. 'We are going to send him the man he wants. He ought to be very much obliged to you.' He added, with the touch of condescension which--from him to her--always teased and yet always touched Penelope, 'The great man owes you far more than he knows. How odd that he should have met you, and so have come across me! He is even more worth meeting than I had expected,' he concluded hesitatingly. 'I wonder why there is still so strong a prejudice against him.' 'Give a dog a bad name,' she said indifferently, and then turned the key in the lock of the door. Penelope had inherited from her methodical father an impatience of interruption. 'Sit down here at the table,' she commanded, 'and now let us put aside Sir George Downing and his affairs, for just now I am more interested in my own. Do you remember the exact terms of the deed--I know you have seen it--in which were arranged all the money matters connected with the Settlement?' 'Yes,' he answered at once, 'I remember the terms quite well. The buildings are left in trust, and my father is one of the trustees; but the income remains entirely in your hands. You could withdraw all supplies to-morrow, or, to put it in another way, you could spend all your income, and so have to pay the claims of the Settlement out of capital. I always thought it a very bad arrangement.' He spoke with a certain sharpness, as if the discussion were distasteful to him. Penelope looked up with some anger, and 'My husband trusted me absolutely,' she said rather proudly. The man sitting opposite to her reddened darkly. He always disliked to hear Penelope mention Melancthon Robinson; the slightest allusion to the founder of the Settlement, when made by her, roused a violent primeval instinct, which insisted on recognition of his own original claim to the beautiful, elusive creature with whom his relations had now been for so long lacking in sincerity. 'That's nonsense,' he said harshly. 'He had no right to do such a thing with a girl of two-and-twenty.' 'One-and-twenty,' she corrected quickly. He went on, avoiding her eyes, but his voice lowering, losing its harshness, in spite of himself. 'It was a most unfair responsibility to put upon you. However intelligent and businesslike,' he added, 'however trusted and worthy of trust----'