"Yes, I am the best judge," she went on more firmly. "I have promised; and I will not break the promise that I have made. I told you before how much I consider that I owe to them. Now that I have the chance of doing a thing that will benefit, not only Percival, but all of them--from a worldly point of view, I mean--I cannot bear to think of drawing back from what I said I would do." "How will it benefit them?" "In a very small way, no doubt," she said, looking aside, so that she might not see the mute protest of his face; "because worldly prosperity is a small thing after all; but if you had seen, as I have, what it was to my uncle to live in a poverty-stricken, sordid way, hampered with duns and debts, and Percival harassing himself with vain endeavours to set things straight, and the children feeling the sting of poverty more and more as they grew older--and then to know that one has the power in one's hands of remedying everything, without giving pain or hurting any one's pride, or----" "I am sorry," said Brian, as she hesitated for a word. "But I do not understand." "Why not!" "How can you set things straight? And how is it that things want setting straight? Mr. Heron is--surely--a rich man." She laughed; even in the midst of her agitation, she laughed a soft, pleasant, little laugh. "Oh, I forgot," she said, suddenly. "You do not know. I found out on the day you came that you did not know." "Did not know--what?" She raised her eyes to his face, and spoke with gravity, but great sweetness. "Nobody meant to deceive you," she said; "in fact, I scarcely know how it is that you have not learnt the truth--partly; I suppose, because in Italy I begged them not to tell anybody the true state of the case; but, really, my uncle is not rich at all. He is a poor man. And Percival is poor, too--very poor," she added, with a lingering sigh over the last two words. "Poor! But--how could a poor man travel in Italy, and rent the Villa Venturi, say nothing of Strathleckie?" "He did not rent it. They were my guests." "Your guests? And what are they now, then?" "My guests still." Brian rose to his feet. "Then you are a rich woman?" "Yes." "It is you, perhaps, who have paid me for teaching these boys?" "There is no disgrace in being paid for work that is worth doing and that is done well," said Elizabeth, flashing an indignant look at him. He bowed his head to the rebuke. "You are right, Miss Murray. But you will, I hope, do me the justice to see that I was perfectly ignorant of the state of affairs; that I was blind--foolishly blind----" "Not foolishly. You could not help it." "I might have seen. I might have known. I took you for----" And there Brian stopped, actually colouring at the thought of his mistake.