"Ah! May thinks so. You see I have thought it right to keep some respect for her father in her mind—for her sake."
"Then if Captain Cheffington did not furnish the money, who did?" asked Owen.
Had May been present, one glimpse of "granny's" face, blushing like a girl's to the roots of her hair, would have betrayed the truth to her. But Owen did not guess it so quickly. After a minute or so, however, as Mrs. Dobbs remained silent, he added rather awkwardly—
"Did you pay the money?"
"Look here, young man," answered Mrs. Dobbs. "You must give me your word of honour that you'll never let out a syllable of this to May, without I give you leave;—else you and me will quarrel."
Owen took her broad, wrinkled hand in his, and kissed it as respectfully as if he had been saluting a queen. "I promise to obey you," he said. "But you make us all look very small and selfish beside you!"
"We old folks, that have but a slack hold on life, must lay up our stores of selfishness in other people's happiness. It's a paying investment, my lad. I'm Oldchester born and bred, and you don't catch me making many bad speculations." The old woman laughed as she spoke, but a tear was trembling in her eye. "Come," said she. "We needn't go into all that. There isn't much time to spare. I want to be back to breakfast before May misses me."
Then she proceeded to impress on Owen that she could not at present sanction an engagement between him and her grand-daughter. Each must be held to be free, at least until Owen should return from Spain, and be able to see his future course a little more distinctly. This he promised without difficulty. Next, Mrs. Dobbs insisted that May should go back to her aunt's house, when the Dormer-Smiths returned to London for the winter. May had shown great reluctance to do this; but Mrs. Dobbs believed she would yield, if Owen backed up the proposal. With regard to Captain Cheffington, Mrs. Dobbs recommended that secrecy should, for the present, be preserved towards him, as well as towards the rest of the world.
"He cares not a straw for his daughter. Of that I can assure you. Indeed, lately, since the dear child has taken her proper place in the world, he has shown a strange kind of jealousy of her. He wrote me a regular blowing-up letter, demanding money, and saying that since I was so rich—Lord help me!—as to keep May in London in luxury, I ought at least to assist May's father in his unmerited distress. And he made a kind of a half-threat that he would come to England, and drag her away, if he was not paid off."
"The scoundrel! But you didn't—"