"She told me--not in words; but every other way. I knew it the hour she came to see me, after she was engaged to marry my son. She strokes her chin like Nat stroked his beard. Have you marked that? She thinks just like Nat thought in a lot of ways, though she's not got his heart. She's not near so silly as he was. Her voice was the echo to his as soon as I got the clue. Her eyes were his again. She handles her knife and fork just like he was wont to do it; she sets her head o' one side to listen to anybody in the way he did. There's birds do it too--when they gather worms out of the grass. And from that I took to marking t'others. Your second girl be more like you; but Heathman will be nearer his father every day as he gets older. If he growed a beard, he'd be nearer him now. Wait and watch. And he's got his heart. Don't speak till you hear more. From finding out that much, I sounded Nathan himself. Little he guessed it, but what I didn't know, I soon learned from him. Cora was the apple of his eye. She could do no wrong. 'Twas Vivian and Ned over again. He spoke of you very guarded, but I knew what was behind. It came out when he was dying, and he was too far gone to hide it. And let me say this: I'll never forgive him for doing such a wicked thing--never. God may; but I won't. I wouldn't forgive myself if I forgave him. But you--you--dull man as I am, I can see a bit of what your life was." "A better life--a more precious life than mine no woman ever lived." He took a deep breath. Here she tacitly confessed to all that he had declared. She did not even confirm it in words, but granted it and proceeded with the argument. And yet his whole theory had been built upon presumption. If she had denied the truth, he possessed no shadow of power to prove it. "If ever I pitied anybody, I pity you; and I admire you in a sort of left-handed way. You're a very uncommon creature to have hid it in the face of such a village as Shaugh Prior." "What I am he made me. He was a man in ten thousand." "I hope he was. Leave him. Let me say this afore we get on. I don't judge you and, God knows it, I'm alive to this thing from your point of view. You loved him well enough even for that. But there's no will. He had nothing to leave; therefore--unless you've saved money during his lifetime----?" "I don't want you to have anything to do with my affairs, Mr. Baskerville." "As you please. But there are your children to be considered. Now it may very much surprise you to know that I have thought a lot about them. Should you say, speaking as an outsider, that I'm under any obligation to serve them?" The sudden and most unexpected question again startled the blood from Mrs. Lintern's heart. "What a terrible curious man you are! What a question to ask me!" she said. "Answer it, however--as if you wasn't interested in it."