me direction or another.

'Nothing for us to be alarmed at,' said Edward, with a forced
cheerfulness.

'But must we rebuild?'

'It seems we must, father.'

The old man's eyes swept the horizon, then he turned to go in, without
making another observation. All light seemed extinguished in him again.
When Edward went in he found his father with the bureau open, unfolding
the leases with a shaking hand, folding them up again without reading
them, then putting them in their niche only to remove them again.

Adelaide was in the room. She said thoughtfully to Edward, as she
watched the farmer--

'I hope it won't kill poor uncle, Edward. What should we do if anything
were to happen to him? He is the only near relative you and I have in
the world.' It was perfectly true, and somehow Edward felt more bound up
with her after that remark.

She continued: 'And he was only saying so hopefully the day before the
fire, that he wouldn't for the world let any one else give me away to
you when we are married.'

For the first time a conscientious doubt arose in Edward's mind as to
the justice of the course he was pursuing in resolving to refuse the
alternative offered by Miss Aldclyffe. Could it be selfishness as well
as independence? How much he had thought of his own heart, how little he
had thought of his father's peace of mind!

The old man did not speak again till supper-time, when he began asking
his son an endless number of hypothetical questions on what might induce
Miss Aldclyffe to listen to kinder terms; speaking of her now not as an
unfair woman, but as a Lachesis or Fate whose course it behoved nobody
to condemn. In his earnestness he once turned his eyes on Edward's
face: their expression was woful: the pupils were dilated and strange in
aspect.

'If she will only agree to that!' he reiterated for the hundredth time,
increasing the sadness of his listeners.

An aristocratic knocking came to the door, and Jane entered with a
letter, addressed--

'MR. EDWARD SPRINGROVE, Junior.'

'Charles from Knapwater House brought it,' she said.

'Miss Aldclyffe's writing,' said Mr. Springrove, before Edward had
recognized it himself. 'Now 'tis all right; she's going to make an
offer; she doesn't want the houses there, not she; they are going to
make that the way into the park.'

Edward opened the seal and glanced at the inside. He said, with a
supreme effort of self-command--

'It is only directed by Mi