’Margaret you mean.  Yes!  I am going to tell her.  Poor fellow! how full his thoughts were of her all last night!  Good God!  Last night only.  And how immeasurably distant he is now!  But I take Margaret as my child for his sake.  I said last night I would take her for her own sake.  Well, I take her for both.’

Mr. Thornton made one or two fruitless attempts to speak, before he could get out the words: 

‘What will become of her!’

’I rather fancy there will be two people waiting for her:  myself for one.  I would take a live dragon into my house to live, if, by hiring such a chaperon, and setting up an establishment of my own, I could make my old age happy with having Margaret for a daughter.  But there are those Lennoxes!’

‘Who are they?’ asked Mr. Thornton with trembling interest.

’Oh, smart London people, who very likely will think they’ve the best right to her.  Captain Lennox married her cousin—­the girl she was brought up with.  Good enough people, I dare say.  And there’s her aunt, Mrs. Shaw.  There might be a way open, perhaps, by my offering to marry that worthy lady! but that would be quite a pis aller.  And then there’s that brother!’

‘What brother?  A brother of her aunt’s?’

’No, no; a clever Lennox, (the captain’s a fool, you must understand) a young barrister, who will be setting his cap at Margaret.  I know he has had her in his mind this five years or more:  one of his chums told me as much; and he was only kept back by her want of fortune.  Now that will be done away with.’

‘How?’ asked Mr. Thornton, too earnestly curious to be aware of the impertinence of his question.

’Why, she’ll have my money at my death.  And if this Henry Lennox is half good enough for her, and she likes him—­well!  I might find another way of getting a home through a marriage.  I’m dreadfully afraid of being tempted, at an unguarded moment, by the aunt.’

Neither Mr. Bell nor Mr. Thornton was in a laughing humour; so the oddity of any of the speeches which the former made was unnoticed by them.  Mr. Bell whistled, without emitting any sound beyond a long hissing breath; changed his seat, without finding comfort or rest while Mr. Thornton sat immoveably still, his eyes fixed on one spot in the newspaper, which he had taken up in order to give himself leisure to think.

‘Where have you been?’ asked Mr. Bell, at length.

’To Havre.  Trying to detect the secret of the great rise in the price of cotton.’

’Ugh!  Cotton, and speculations, and smoke, well-cleansed and well-cared-for machinery, and unwashed and neglected hands.  Poor old Hale!  Poor old Hale!  If you could have known the change which it was to him from Helstone.  Do you know the New Forest at all?’

‘Yes.’ (Very shortly).

’Then you can fancy the difference between it and Milton.  What part were you in?  Were you ever at Helstone? a little picturesque village, like some in the Odenwald?  You know Helstone?’