"Halloa, Miss Maude! I read a secret. That will not do, you know. I cannot spare you from the Hold for all the George Ryles in the world. You must be its mistress."
"My aunt Diana will be that," murmured Maude.
"That she never shall be whilst I am master," was the emphatic rejoinder. "If Diana could look quietly on and see her father deceived, help to deceive him; see Chattaway usurp the Hold to the exclusion of Joe's son, and join in the wickedness, she has forfeited all claim to it: she shall neither reign nor reside in it. No, my little Maude, you must live with me, as mistress of Trevlyn Hold."
Maude's tears were flowing in silence. She kept her head down.
"What is George Ryle to you?" somewhat sternly asked Squire Trevlyn. "Do you love him?"
"I had no one else to love: they were not kind to me—except my aunt Edith," she murmured.
He sat lost in thought. "Is he a good man, Maude? Upright, honourable, just?"
"That, and more," she whispered.
"And I suppose you love him? Would it quite break your heart were I to issue my edict that you should never have him; to say you must turn him over to Octave Chattaway?"
It was only a jest. Maude took it differently, and lifted her glowing face. "But he does not like Octave! It is Octave who likes——"