Grafton had gone up to London on Monday morning, and would not be back until Friday evening. Caroline wrote to him on Tuesday morning. Maurice also wrote to him. There was no reply to either of the letters. Caroline had told him that she should tell no one else until she heard from him, or saw him.

She motored to the station to meet him. Her heart was heavy, but beneath her dread of what was coming was a deep calm and assurance. There were to have been guests at the Abbey over the week-end, but a telegram had been received to say that they had been put off. That was all that she had heard from her father, though when he had been away for the whole working week he had always written to her at least once.

He gave her his usual greeting when he got out of the train—"Well, my darling!" and kissed her. The kiss was, if anything, warmer than usual, and she felt an immense lift of love and gratitude towards him. If he had brought himself to accept it! She had hardly dared to hope for that.

He had brought some cases down, and she stood with her arm in his while he gave instructions about them. Then they got into the car and drove off.

"I didn't write, darling," he said immediately, "because it wanted a lot of thinking about, and some getting used to. It was quite a surprise to me. You say it was to you, too. Are you quite sure about it?"

"Yes, Dad, quite sure," she said softly, her arm still in his.

"Well, I knew you must be. I came to see that. Whatever I thought about it myself, it was for you to decide, and you weren't likely to have made a mistake, or to have gone into it lightly. I trust you absolutely, darling. I trust you in some things more than I do myself. If it's what you want, you must be right to want it. You'll have no trouble with me."

She broke down and cried on his shoulder. The strain on her had been greater than she had known, and its entire removal unbalanced her for the moment. Her tears did not last long. "You've made me so happy," she said. "I don't know why I'm crying. I ought to be laughing."

"Dearest child!" he said tenderly. "You've been fearing that I should make a fuss, eh? Well, there's going to be a bit of a fuss, you know, Aunt Katharine and Aunt Mary, and all the rest of them. They won't understand it all."

"Do you understand it all, Dad?" she asked. "Is that why you're so sweet about it?"

"Perhaps I don't understand it all," he said, "though I've taken a lot of trouble about it. You won't expect me to shirk the difficulties. You'll have to answer up, won't you? They won't like it, and they'll say so. It will be for your sake they'll make objections, and think they are right in doing it. You'll have to remember that. But they're not—either of them—what you might call worldly, at heart. If you're right you'll be able to make them see it."

"I shan't mind anything if you're on my side, darling Dad. I hoped you would be when I had seen you, but I didn't think you'd bring me such comfort as you have, just at first. It makes me love you more than ever, because you understand the best things in me."

There was a pause before he said: "Tell me about it, darling. We needn't talk about what the world will see, and criticise. You must have faced that. And—"

"Perhaps it would be better," she said, "if I tell you how I have faced it, so as to get it out of the way, between you and me, Dad. We have talked about marriage together, and I know what your views are. Mine were much the same, before I knew I loved Maurice. I suppose that was why I didn't know that I did love him. Until it came to me, I shouldn't have thought of marrying anybody that Aunt Katharine and Aunt Mary wouldn't think it suitable that I should marry—somebody with an established position, who had lived in the world that they belong to. I think even if I had found myself to have fallen in love—"

She hesitated. "Ah, that's the important thing," he said, and she knew that he understood her, and went on, with a pressure on the arm she was holding. "Yes, even if I had fallen in love—unless there was something deeper—I shouldn't have thought it right, and should have tried to get over it."

He kissed her, and laughed. "I think I'm rather a clever fellow," he said. "I've had to work it out all by myself, and I've worked it out right. You see, I know you, my Cara. I don't know him yet, though. So it wasn't easy."

She pressed closer to him. "It's lovely to feel one is so much trusted," she said. "But you were right to trust me, darling. No, I know it couldn't have been easy. I've had to do some thinking myself, so as to see how you'd take it. I knew you'd be dear and kind, but I couldn't expect you to see Maurice as I see him, now that I love him. He thinks, you know, that I'm much above him. I'm not, in anything that matters. But in all the things that the world looks at—. That's what we're up against, isn't it, Dad?"

"We'll be up against it together, darling, and if I'm with you the others won't matter much. But it's true, you know, that I don't see him as you do, yet. You've got to help me."

"I know. Well, darling, you've seen I have changed since we came to live here. When we had that ride, to breakfast with Mollie, we talked about it. You thought I was cutting myself off from something that was worth having. I wasn't quite sure that I wasn't, and I enquired into myself afterwards."

"What did you discover? It's very important. You will cut yourself off."

"I discovered that I really didn't want any of it; not to make it matter. My happiness is in the quietest things I do, not in the other things. Even our big beautiful house, and the garden, and the way we live—that counted for a lot when we first came to live in the country. But it's not what counts most now. It's the country itself—nature, I suppose. I'm at home with it. There's something in me that responds. Well, Maurice is like that too; even more than I am, because his life has been simpler than mine. He is really big, Dad; big and simple and direct. There's been nothing to complicate his purpose. I've felt it about him all along. Now I love him, I know what it is that has brought me to him. I can look up to him, and I do."

They went up together to Maurice's room. He was on the sofa, propped up now against cushions, and soon to be ready to be wheeled about.

"Well, my boy!" said Grafton, as he shook hands with him.

"Dad is on our side, Maurice," said Caroline.

A look of intense happiness came into his face, and tears sprang to his eyes; for he was still weak, and the relief brought to him was overpowering.

Grafton sat down by the sofa. "She has told me all about it," he said. "If it's what she wants, it's what I want for her."

As he spoke he searched the young man's face, to see, if he could, what there was in him that he hadn't seen already, but she had seen to such surprising effect. He caught a glimpse of it. It was a strong face. The diffidence that had been perhaps the chief note of this young man's behaviour towards them all had been based upon his youth and inexperience. They had represented to him a side of life in which he had not been, and probably never would be, at home. But it was the conventional side of life. In the big, basic things he would not show diffidence. And he would grow into his man's good strength.

He had grown already. He looked the older man straight in the face as he said: "I've done nothing to deserve her yet. But if you'll give her to me I will."

Worthing came to dine that evening. Grafton was to tell him about it when they were alone together after dinner. Miss Waterhouse, only, had been told so far. She had shown no surprise, but had said very little. Grafton was not sure whether she approved or not, but knew that she would express herself to him by and bye, in her quiet way that was full of wisdom.

Worthing had been up to see Maurice before dinner. He was rather quieter than usual until he and his host were left alone together. When Caroline and Miss Waterhouse had gone out of the room, he said at once: "Grafton, I've got to get something off my chest, and I may as well do it at once. I think the sooner young Bradby is moved out of here the better."

Grafton laughed, rather ruefully. "You should have said that a fortnight ago," he said. "It's too late now, James."

Worthing stared at him open-mouthed. "You don't mean to say—!"

"They've fallen in love with one another. She's as deep in it as he is."

Worthing struggled with his consternation. "But—but—but—" was all he could say, and each 'but' marked a question to which he wanted an answer.

"What do you see in the boy, James?" asked Grafton. "He's been living with you for over a year now. You must know him as well as anybody."

Worthing found his voice. "What do I see in him?" he said. "I don't see a husband for Caroline in him. I call it an infernal piece of impudence. Surely you're not going to allow it! Why, he's hardly begun his work yet. He couldn't expect to marry anybody, for years to come. And a girl like Caroline! Good Lord! What's the world coming to?"

He seemed greatly disturbed. "I feel as if I was to blame, in bringing him here," he said. "But I never thought—"

"Well, it's natural that you should take that view, at first. I took it myself when I first had their letters. It was about the biggest startler I've ever had. But you know Caroline, James. She loves him. If you can find the answer to the riddle why she loves him, for yourself—!"

"That's not very difficult. He saved her life, and nearly lost his own in doing it. She's been looking after him. Women are like that, and young girls especially. You don't have to know much about them to see that; there are thousands of instances."

"That's what it will look like to everybody, I know. But it wouldn't be enough for Caroline."

"Caroline's one of the best girls that ever stepped. All your girls are; they're quite out of the common. But human nature works in them just the same as in anybody else. Why, you've seen it yourself, in Beatrix. She fell in love with a wrong 'un. You stopped that; and now she's got the right man. Supposing she'd married the first fellow she fell in love with!"

"You say I stopped it. I've asked myself how much I had to do with stopping it. I got it put off. If he hadn't—"

"Well, then, you ought to get this put off—at least. Bradby is a good enough fellow in his own class, but his class isn't Caroline's. That's plain enough! I can't understand your thinking about it all. There isn't a soul in the world who wouldn't think you were justified in stopping it—taking her away, or something; or telling me to clear him out. I'd do it like a shot."

"It wouldn't make any difference. I've come to see that. I love my little B, but she isn't Caroline. She might have fallen in love—she actually did—with a man who wasn't fit for her to marry. Caroline never would."

"Beatrix would never have fallen in love with Bradby."

"I know she wouldn't. She wouldn't have seen below the surface. Caroline does, and she finds something there that I confess I haven't been able to see hitherto. That's why I asked you at the beginning what you saw in him. Get rid of all the side issues. He's young; he isn't in a position to marry; he doesn't belong to our sort of people. What is he beneath all that? Or, if you like, what is he going to grow into?"

"He's A1 at his work. I've never denied that. He'll get a good job by and bye, and be worth it; but not for a good many years yet."

"That is one of the side issues. Caroline wouldn't love him because he was likely to get a good job. What is he in himself? Come now, James, you're a man of some perception, and he has lived with you for over a year."

"What is he in himself?" Worthing frowned, with the effort to direct his thoughts into the channels required of them. "You want me to give you excuses for accepting him," he said.

"Not excuses; reasons. I'll tell you how Caroline sees him. Her words struck me. She said he was big and simple and direct."

This was rather beyond Worthing. "He's a good fellow," he said. "He's not always thinking about himself; a nice fellow to live with. Whatever he does he does as well as he can do it. Is that what she means by being direct? He's simple enough, if that's a good quality. I'm not sure that it is. Fellows of our age can say we've hit upon the right sort of life and don't want anything beyond it, but I think a young fellow ought to have some ambition. I've never seen any in him. I doubt if he'd ever move to get himself on; he'd just do his work wherever he was. I don't know what she means by his being big. He's in his right place on the land."

"That's what she does mean, I think. He's so much in his right place, where most people aren't quite. And the land is big. He's in tune with it. I think that's how she expressed it. It's a bit beyond anything I could have got hold of myself, but it isn't beyond me to take in her view, believing in her as I do. She's big herself, you know, James. And she's simple and direct too. She has found herself, living here in the country. Eighteen months ago she wouldn't have fallen in love with Bradby, any more than B would. She's been getting away from the sort of life she was brought up to all the time. I've known that."

"But do you want that? It means she's getting away from you. I should have thought that was the last thing you'd have wanted."

"Damn it, man! Can't you see into things a bit? How much do you think I should be likely to want a marriage of this sort for a daughter of mine, if it were left to me? I was absolutely bowled over by it. I'll say that, just once to you, and get it out of the way. I'll say it to nobody else, and I won't let Caroline know it if I can possibly help it. Supposing I stood out! What should I stand out on? On everything that she sees as plainly as I do, but rejects for herself. And what she sees and accepts as all important for her, and for the best part of her, she'd find me incapable of accepting. What could part us more than that? She's made up her mind, and she's sure she's right. She won't change; it would be a come down for her to take the view of it all that strikes you and me. I'm what I am, and what my life has made me. I can't help this being a grievous disappointment to me. I want all sorts of things for her that I've a right to want for my daughter. But if she doesn't want them—if she doesn't think they're the best things—!"

"She's bound to miss all she's been brought up to."

"If I thought she would I might stick out, for her sake. It wouldn't bring me much consolation to stick out. I should only be dividing myself from her, as I did for a time from B. I don't want that again. I've learnt something. I stuck out against that fellow because I felt right through me that he wasn't right in himself, for B. If I stood out against Bradby, it would be because he wasn't a match for Caroline in money and position and all that sort of thing. I'm not going to base myself on all that, and show myself incapable of sharing her bigger ideals. And what would be the good? It would hurt her damnably to know that I couldn't stand beside her on that plane; but she'd never come down to mine."

Worthing showed himself impressed. "If you think of her like that!" he said.

"Well, isn't it the right way to think about her? There are some people in the world whom you can trust never to go wrong. She's one of them. Her mother was another. If her mother had been alive, she'd have backed her up. I've tried my best to stand for what she would have done towards our children, but a man can only make a clumsy job of that at his best. Still, where I see it, I'm going to take her line rather than my own. I'd have trusted her; and I trust Caroline."

Worthing was silent for a time. Then he said: "Well, I hope you're right about it. I can't say it looks anything but odd to me. I don't think you can care about it much yourself, either. You must have had a difficult time bringing yourself to your present way of thinking. I can see that. It does you a lot of credit."

Grafton sat silent too, looking down. Presently he said, as if summing it all up: "I trust Caroline. If I don't see it as she does, it's because my ideas aren't likely to be as right as hers. But for my own sake, and hers too, I shall try to see it as she does. And I shall stand between her and her relations. I shan't say as much to any of them as I have to you. We'd better go up to them, I think. Don't let him see what you think about it, more than you can help. Make the best of him."

Grafton had a talk with Maurice alone the next morning. He had never found it easy to talk to him, except where it was a question of the things he knew about. He had as little of the art of general conversation as a young man of his age very well could have, and his diffidence had made him even rather tiresome as a companion.

But there was none in the way he spoke now. He had gained Caroline's love, which made him feel himself a king among men, though in desert still far beneath her. He was full of gratitude for the gift of her love, and he was grateful too to her father for his acceptance of him as her lover.

"I know what a lot there is against me," he said quietly, "that you are bound to take into account. But although she's so much above me in every way, we love the same things, and I can give her something that another man might not. I've found out that I can make her happy. That's the most wonderful discovery I've ever made. I hope you'll trust me to do it."

"My dear boy," Grafton said, "I've got to trust you. She does. It's all I want of you, that you should make her happy, all her life. I've made her happy up till now. But a father can't complete his daughter's life, however much he loves her. Only a husband can do that. She believes you're the one man in the world who can give her all she wants, and because she believes it, I'm bound to believe it too. Tell me the course of life you have in your mind for yourselves. I know you've talked it over together, but I told her I'd rather have it from you. I want to get into complete sympathy with you as well as with her."

"I know it must be difficult for you, Mr. Grafton," the boy said. "We are both very grateful to you for the way you have treated me. I didn't expect you'd be so kind about it. She said you would be, but I think I can see more clearly than she does what a difference there is between us. In the way you'd look at it, I think I see it just as clearly as you do."

"Well, I'm glad you've said that, Maurice. I suppose a father is apt to think about the material side of marriage for his daughters more than the other. I think he's right to do it, because with the experience he has reached he knows well enough that the material side of a marriage is a lot more important than two young people who have fallen in love with one another are likely to see for themselves. It mustn't be left out of account with you two. That's why I want to know what your ideas are—as to the way you've planned it out for yourselves."

"We look at it like this," he answered at once. "A very simple life, in the country, will give both of us what we most want. It's easy enough for me, because it's more than I've ever had. Even the way I live with Mr. Worthing, and coming here, and going to other houses like this, is more than I've had. I should expect to be able to get to that by what I can earn, by and bye, but of course it's much less than Caroline has been used to. I've thought about it a great deal, and tried to take into account everything that she would be losing by marrying me—to see whether she ought not to lose any of it."

"Well, what do you think she will be losing?"

"The biggest thing, which would trouble me greatly if I thought she would lose it because of me, would be the way you and her own family would look upon her. If it wouldn't make any difference—"

"Well, it won't make any difference to me. I've assured you of that already."

"I'm rather afraid of how Beatrix will take it."

"Beatrix won't like it, Maurice. We'd better look it all in the face. I don't know how her life will turn out, but it will never be so free of the world as Caroline's will. She isn't built on the same lines, and they won't come together on the deepest things in Caroline's life. She won't understand them. But they love one another, and they'll go on loving one another."

"Yes, I think so. It was you I thought most about. Then her other relations, and all the people she has lived among, and I haven't. She will be cut off from them. Not entirely, where they are real friends; but she will no longer be living their life, and I'm not fitted to live it. She won't be able to see so much even of those who would want her, and she would like to see. She won't be able to pay many visits, or go much to London. She will miss all the clever interesting people she has constantly met, and being in the world, and part of it, as she has been."

Grafton laughed. "She'll have told you that she has already reconciled herself to not living much in the world," he said.

"Yes, she has. But I had to ask myself for her whether she wouldn't miss it more than she thinks. She has a great deal of it still—here. She wouldn't have nearly so much. And of course all that it means living in a house like this she would lose,—what she has grown used to, and doesn't think about, because she has always had it. I can see how different her life would be."

"I think you've faced it all pretty straight, Maurice, except that she'll lose consideration in the world. How does that strike you?"

He hesitated a moment. "I don't think it matters," he said.

"Perhaps it doesn't. But why don't you think it matters?"

"Because nothing that she will be if she marries me will be less than what she has been. Everybody whose opinion she would value would know that."

"Well, I think you've got that right too. And as for all the rest—there's a certain way of living that one wouldn't like to see one's daughter fall below; but it doesn't depend upon big houses, or a lot of money. There's no reason why she shouldn't have it. I do think myself, that with a girl like Caroline, so suited to take her place in the best sort of society that the world has to offer, it's a pity she shouldn't have it. But we've had that out together and she says she doesn't want it. She wants something else, which she thinks is better. I wish she could have had both; but if not, she's made her choice, with her eyes open, and I'm not going to say that I think she's wrong. She won't be losing everything that she has been brought up to either. What are your ideas about getting married?"

"We haven't talked about it much yet. It's for the future, when we can see ourselves settled somewhere."

Grafton sat thinking for some time. Then he got up from his chair. "Well, I expect you'll want to see Caroline now," he said. "I must go down and write some letters."