“You said he was the worry of your life to-day,” said Dorothy. “Because he's too good, dear. We're none of us good enough for him,” said Miss Lanyon. Matthew returned to the seat and slowly divested himself of his flowers, giving himself up for the moment to the peaceful charm of the afternoon hour. The place was dear to him. It was more or less the creation of his life. It was a small house in a little garden when he had brought his wife to Ayresford. And he had added on to both, bit by bit, building a wing, buying a few adjacent acres, until it had come to be a large property perfectly laid out. The house stood mellow and homelike in the soft sunshine, with ivy and clematis clustering on walls and around windows. The lawn, smooth and well trimmed, stretched into the dimness of a little wilderness marked by shrubs. The sycamores on the other side of the house waved their tops above the roof. He remembered when they were planted. She planted them. What a number of years ago! And there in the old part of the house was her window. The clematis had always been there. He remembered how it used to brush her cheek as she leaned out to call to him. It was just such an afternoon as this that her delicate face, like a pink shell, flushed with excitement, had appeared and she had summoned him nearer. “Mat, Baby has cut a tooth.” My God! He could hear her voice now; almost wondered whether she had not withdrawn within, and whether the five and thirty years had not been a vague dream, and he himself was not young and vigorous and defiant of fate. But the quick memories of the day rushed back upon him and obscured the dearer vision. The marriage was impossible. His heart yearned towards the girl whom he loved with an old man's tender affection. How could he allow her to marry a man whom he knew, from heredity, from actual facts that had come miserably within his own knowledge, to be an unprincipled adventurer? The misery of it was that his lips were sealed. He could not tell her of Roderick's real character. To do that would be to break virtually the promise he had kept for over thirty years. “Whatever I do for my own son, I shall do for yours.” He could no more blacken Roderick's reputation than he could Sylvester's. Perhaps the marriage would redeem him. Yet to stake the life's happiness of a human soul that was dear to him upon the chance of another's redemption was too great a responsibility. Why had she engaged herself to this man? It was not through love. He drew from his pocket the letter he had received from her that morning and read it through. It was constrained, artificial. The tone jarred upon their intimacy. Perhaps Ella had changed, grown worldly and cynical, lost her love for him. Or was it only the letter of a girl at war with her own heart? He had seen many such battles in his time. “At any rate, I withhold my consent,” he said decisively.