ich had fallen into
the path from the boughs of the chestnut trees. In another minute she
stood in front of him.

He answered her casual greeting respectfully, and was about to request
a few minutes' conversation with her, when she directly addressed him
on the subject of the fire. 'It is a sad misfortune for your father' she
said, 'and I hear that he has lately let his insurances expire?'

'He has, madam, and you are probably aware that either by the general
terms of his holding, or the same coupled with the origin of the fire,
the disaster may involve the necessity of his rebuilding the whole row
of houses, or else of becoming a debtor to the estate, to the extent of
some hundreds of pounds?'

She assented. 'I have been thinking of it,' she went on, and then
repeated in substance the words put into her mouth by the steward.
Some disturbance of thought might have been fancied as taking place in
Springrove's mind during her statement, but before she had reached the
end, his eyes were clear, and directed upon her.

'I don't accept your conditions of release,' he said.

'They are not conditions exactly.'

'Well, whatever they are not, they are very uncalled-for remarks.'

'Not at all--the houses have been burnt by your family's negligence.'

'I don't refer to the houses--you have of course the best of all rights
to speak of that matter; but you, a stranger to me comparatively, have
no right at all to volunteer opinions and wishes upon a very delicate
subject, which concerns no living beings but Miss Graye, Miss Hinton,
and myself.'

Miss Aldclyffe, like a good many others in her position, had plainly
not realized that a son of her tenant and inferior could have become an
educated man, who had learnt to feel his individuality, to view society
from a Bohemian standpoint, far outside the farming grade in Carriford
parish, and that hence he had all a developed man's unorthodox opinion
about the subordination of classes. And fully conscious of the labyrinth
into which he had wandered between his wish to behave honourably in the
dilemma of his engagement to his cousin Adelaide and the intensity of
his love for Cytherea, Springrove was additionally sensitive to any
allusion to the case. He had spoken to Miss Aldclyffe with considerable
warmth.

And Miss Aldclyffe was not a woman likely to be far behind any second
person in warming to a mood of defiance. It seemed as if she were
prepared to put up with a cold refusal,