“Thank you.  Well, then, there is an attachment between Mary and young Clifford.”

Bartley was on his guard directly.

“Her happiness is at stake.  That gives me a right to interfere, and say, ‘be kind to her.’”

“Am I not kind to her?  Was any parent ever kinder?  But I must be wise as well as kind.  Colonel Clifford can disinherit his son.”

At this point the young people ventured to peep and listen, taking advantage of the circumstance that both Hope and Bartley were at some distance, with their backs turned to the workshop.

So they both heard Hope say,

“Withdraw your personal opposition to the match, and the other difficulty can be got over.  If you want to be kind to a young woman, it is no use feeding her ambition and her avarice, for these are a man’s idols.  A woman’s is love.”

Mary wafted the speaker a furtive kiss.

“To enrich that dear child after your death, thirty years hence, and break her heart in the flower of her youth, is to be unkind to her; and if you are unkind to her, our compact is broken.”

“Unkind to her,” said Bartley.  “What male parent has ever been more kind, more vigilant?  Sentimental weakness is another matter.  My affection is more solid.  Can I oblige you in anything that is business?”

“Mr. Bartley,” said Hope, “you can not divert me from the more important question:  business is secondary to that dear girl’s happiness.  However, I have more than once asked you to tell me who is the loser of that large sum, which, as you and I have dealt with it, has enriched you and given me a competence.”

“That’s my business,” said Bartley, sharply, “for you never fingered a shilling of it.  So if the pittance I pay you for conducting my business burns your pocket, why, send it to Rothschild.”

And having made this little point, Bartley walked away to escape further comment, and Hope turned on his heel and walked into his office, and out at the back door directly, and proceeded to his duties in the mine; but he was much displeased with Bartley, and his looks showed it.

The coast lay clear.  The lovers came cautiously out, and silently too, for what they had heard puzzled them not a little.

Mary came out first, and wore a very meditative look.  She did not say a word till they got to some little distance from the workshop.  Then she half turned her head toward Walter, who was behind her, and said, “I suppose you know we have done a contemptible thing—­listening?”

“Well,” said Walter, “it wasn’t good form; but,” added he, “we could hardly help it.”

“Of course not,” said Mary.  “We have been guilty of a concealment that drives us into holes and corners, and all manner of meannesses must be expected to follow.  Well, we have listened, and I am very glad of it; for it is plain we are not the only people who have got secrets.  Now tell me, please, what does it all mean?”