"We think we shall go into Guestwick."
"And why?"
"Ah, that is so hard to explain. If you would only accept the fact as I tell it to you, and not ask for the reasons which have guided me!"
"But that is out of the question, Mary. In such a matter as that I must ask your reasons; and I must tell you also that, in my opinion, you will not be doing your duty to your daughters in carrying out such an intention, unless your reasons are very strong indeed."
"But they are very strong," said Mrs. Dale; and then she paused.
"I cannot understand it," said the squire. "I cannot bring myself to believe that you are really in earnest. Are you not comfortable there?"
"More comfortable than we have any right to be with our means."
"But I thought you always did very nicely with your money. You never get into debt."
"No; I never get into debt. It is not that, exactly. The fact is, Mr. Dale, we have no right to live there without paying rent; but we could not afford to live there if we did pay rent."
"Who has talked about rent?" he said, jumping up from his chair. "Some one has been speaking falsehoods of me behind my back." No gleam of the real truth had yet come to him. No idea had reached his mind that his relatives thought it necessary to leave his house in consequence of any word that he himself had spoken. He had never considered himself to have been in any special way generous to them, and would not have thought it reasonable that they should abandon the house in which they had been living, even if his anger against them had been strong and hot. "Mary," he said, "I must insist upon getting to the bottom of this. As for your leaving the house, it is out of the question. Where can you be better off, or so well? As to going into Guestwick, what sort of life would there be for the girls? I put all that aside as out of the question; but I must know what has induced you to make such a proposition. Tell me honestly,—has any one spoken evil of me behind my back?"