ld-
fashioned bow, "whatever sympathy I may have felt for you is being
rapidly alienated by your manner. I told you that my daughter must
speak for herself. She has spoken very clearly indeed, and, in short,
I have absolutely nothing to add to her words."

"I tell you what it is," Cossey said, shaking with fury, "I have been
tricked and fooled and played with, and so surely as there is a heaven
above us I will have my revenge on you all. The money which this man
says that he has found belongs to the Queen, not to you, and I will
take care that the proper people are informed of it before you can
make away with it. When that is taken from you, if, indeed, the whole
thing is not a trick, we shall see what will happen to you. I tell you
that I will take this property and I will pull this old place you are
so fond of down stone by stone and throw it into the moat, and send
the plough over the site. I will sell the estate piecemeal and blot it
out. I tell you I have been tricked--you encouraged the marriage
yourself, you know you did, and forbade that man the house," and he
paused for breath and to collect his words.

Again the Squire bowed, and his bow was a study in itself. You do not
see such bows now-a-days.

"One minute, Mr. Cossey," he said very quietly, for it was one of his
peculiarities to become abnormally quiet in circumstances of real
emergency, "and then I think that we may close this painful interview.
When first I knew you I did not like you. Afterwards, through various
circumstances, I modified my opinion and set my dislike down to
prejudice. You are quite right in saying that I encouraged the idea of
a marriage between you and my daughter, also that I forbade the house
to Colonel Quaritch. I did so because, to be honest, I saw no other
way of avoiding the utter ruin of my family; but perhaps I was wrong
in so doing. I hope that you may never be placed in a position which
will force you to such a decision. Also at the time, indeed never till
this moment, have I quite realised how the matter really stood. I did
not understand how strongly my daughter was attached in another
direction, perhaps I was unwilling to understand it. Nor did I
altogether understand the course of action by which it seems you
obtained a promise of marriage from my daughter in the first instance.
I was anxious for the marriage because I believed you to be a better
man than you are, also because I thought that it would place my
daughte