"What did you do if it wasn't that? No proud man can stay under the roof where he's treated like a child. But Mark--did I forbid? No. I only made it clear that I despised the woman he'd set his heart on. I only told him the bitter truth of her. If she'd clung to him through all, would I have turned him away or refused him? Never. 'Twould have made no difference. 'Twas not me kept 'em apart--as you are trying to keep apart your son and Saul Luscombe's niece--trying and failing. 'Twas the proud, empty, heartless female herself that left him." "I'll hear nought against her," answered Vivian stoutly. "She's not proud and she's not empty. She's a very sensible woman, and this cruel piece of work has been a sad trouble to her. She left Mark because she felt that you hated her, and would torment her and make her married life a scourge to her back. Any woman with proper sense and self-respect would have done the like. 'Twas you and only you choked her off your son, and 'tis vain--'tis wicked to the girl--to say now that 'twas her fault. But I've not come to speak these things--only I won't hear lies told." "You've heard 'em already, it seems. Who's been telling you this trash? Nathan Baskerville belike?" "As a matter of fact 'tis my son Ned," answered Vivian. "You must surely know how things have fallen out? It happened long afore poor Mark died. Didn't he tell you?" "He told me nought. What should he tell me? Ned he certainly wouldn't name, for he knew of all your brood I like your eldest son least--a lazy, worthless man, as all the world well knows but you." "You shan't anger me, try as you will, Humphrey. I'm here, as your elder brother and the head of the family, to offer sympathy to you in your trouble; and I'll ax you to leave my family alone. Young men will be young men, and as for Ned, if I be the only one that feels as I should feel to him, 'tis because I'm the only one that understands his nature and his gifts. He'll astonish you yet, and all of us. The books he reads! You wait. Soon ripe, soon rotten. He's taking his time, and if he wants a wife, 'tis only in reason that the future head of the family should have a wife; and why not? He shan't have to work as I have worked." "A fool's word! What made you all you are? Work and the love of it. Yet you let him go to the devil in idleness." "If you'd but suffer me to finish my speech--I say that Ned won't work as I have worked--with my limbs and muscles. He's got a brain, and the time be coming when he'll use it." "Never." "Anyway a settled life is the first thing, and the mind free to follow its proper bent. And I don't say 'no' to his marrying, because the case is different from Rupert's, and 'tis fitting that he should do so." "But Rupert must not. And you pass for a just and sensible man!"