"You said he was getting better. For God's sake, do not speak of his death."
"I am supposing a case. You would then be squire of Sandal-Side. Would you return there with Beatrice?"
"Ah, no! I know what those Dalesmen are. My father's feelings were only their feelings intensified by his relation to me. They would look upon me as my father's murderer, and Beatrice as an accessory to the deed."
"Still you would be squire of Sandal-Side."
"Mother would have to take my place, or Charlotte. I have thought of that. I could not bear to sit in father's chair, and go up and down the house. I should see him always. I should hear continually that awful cry with which he fell. It fills, even here, all the spaces of my memory and my dreams. I cannot go back to Sandal-Side. Nothing could take me back, not even my mother."
"Then listen, I am the heir failing you."
"No, no: there is my son Michael."
Julius was stunned for a moment. "Oh, yes! The child is a boy, then?"
"It is a boy. What were you going to say?"