'Then I am to understand——'
'That she is dead,' said Sir Clement, in a low voice.
There was a silence between them, which was at last broken by the colonel.
'What you have told me,' he said, 'is a great surprise, more especially with regard to my daughter. Being but a child at the time, however, she could not, I am confident, have thought of you in any other light than as her father's friend. It is, of course, on that footing that you return now?'
'As her father's friend, certainly, I hope,' said the baronet firmly, 'but I wish to tell you now that my regard for her has never changed. I confess I would have been afraid to come back to you had not my longing to see her again given me courage.'
'She has not the least idea of this,' murmured the colonel, 'not the least. The fact is that Mary has lived so quietly with me here that she is still a child. Miss Meredith, whom I dare say you have met here, has been almost her only friend, and I am quite certain that the thought of marriage has never crossed their minds. If you, or even if I, were to speak of such a thing to Mary, it would only frighten her.'
'I should not think of speaking to her on the subject at present,' the baronet interposed, rather hurriedly, 'but I thought it best to explain my position to you. You know what I am, that I have been almost a vagrant on the face of the earth since I reached manhood, but no one can see more clearly than I do myself how unworthy I am of her.'
'I do not need to tell you,' said the colonel, taking the baronet's hand, 'that I used to like you, Dowton, and indeed I know no one whom I would prefer for a son-in-law. But you must be cautious with Mary.'
'I shall be very cautious,' said the baronet; 'indeed there is no hurry, none whatever.'
Colonel Abinger would have brought the conversation to a close here, but there was something more for Dowton to say.