"What did he propose to do?"
"No one was to be allowed to have anything to do with it, no one was to know of it, he was to be everything! For this reason the timber was to be cut down and sold; and when we were married—I say when we were married, the whole of my fortune was to be used as well."
He saw the horror with which she still regarded it; she was passing through the whole struggle again; and he understood that he must not question her further. She made a gesture with her hand; and he asked hurriedly, "Why did you not tell me before, mother?"
"Because it would have brought you no good," she answered decidedly.
He felt, nay, he saw that she believed that it would bring him no good now. She again raised her hand, and he left her.
When he was once more in the boat, taking his great news to the parsonage, he thought to himself, Here is the reason of my father's and mother's deadly enmity.
The cement stone! She did not trust him, she would not give him both herself and her fortune, so there was no cement, nor were any trees felled.
"Well, he scored after all. Yes, and mother too; but God help ME!"
Then he reckoned up what the timber and the fortune together would have been worth, and what further sum could have been raised on the property, the value of the cement-bed being taken into consideration. He understood his father better than his mother. What a fortune, what power, what magnificence, what a life!
At the parsonage he carried every one with him.