"Your outlook, Vont," he said, "is full of prejudice and utterly illogical. I found qualities in your daughter which endeared her to me, and she has lived a perfectly reputable and engrossing life ever since she left your home, such a life as she could not possibly have lived under your roof or in this part of the world. In every way that counts, she has prospered. Therefore, I ask you to reconsider the matter. I claim that any wrong I may have done you is expiated, and I suggest that you abandon an attitude which--pardon me--is just a little theatrical, put aside that very excellent Book or else read it as a whole, and give me your hand." "I'd cut it off first," Vont declared savagely. "This is rank prejudice," the Marquis protested. "It seems so to you, belike," was the scornful answer. "You clever folk who can crowd your brain with thoughts and ideas from books--you've no room there for the big things. You've so many little weeds growing up around that the flower doesn't count. Nought that you can say about Marcia can alter matters. I'd sooner have seen her married to the poorest creature on your land than to know that she has lived as your dependent for all these years." The Marquis shook his head sorrowfully. "You're an obstinate old man, Vont," he said, "and a very selfish one. You are wrapped up in your own narrow ideas, and you won't even allow any one else to show you the truth. Marcia has been happy with me. She would have been the most miserable creature on earth married to a clod." "Ay, she's been here to show herself," Vont muttered, "down in a motor-car, in furs and silks, like a creature from some world that I know not about. She's talked as you've talked. I've listened to the pair of you. I thrust my daughter out of the garden and bade her go away and learn the truth. And you--well, I just take leave to say that as I cursed you nigh on a score of years ago, and have cursed you in my heart ever since, so I curse you now!" "But are you going to sit there every day doing it?" the Marquis enquired, a little irritably. "This house and garden are mine," Richard Vont replied stolidly, "although you've done your best to beggar me by taking them away. When I choose, I shall sit here. When I choose, I shall sit and watch you with your guests, watch you morning, noon and night. I've one wish in my heart, hour by hour. Maybe that wish will reach home, Marquis of Mandeleys. If it does, you'll see them all in black along the churchyard path there, and hear the doors of your vault roll open." "You're a little mixed in your similes, my friend," the Marquis remarked, "because, you know, if those things happen--to me, I shall be the one person who doesn't hear them. Still, I gather that you are implacable, and that is what I came to find out. What astonishingly fine hollyhocks!" he observed, as he turned away. "I must go and look at my own."