"And you really wish to take the troublesome care of this, whatever it may be?"
"I do."
"Then I give it to you freely."
"And you will give me as absolute control over it as if it had been formally made over to my care by the will of your dead father?"
He had now paused in his walk once more, and was standing looking down on her, not with the fiery eyes of a few moments ago, but with deep, careful, anxious eyes, as though matter of great moment depended on her answer.
Under his steady glance she felt her head grow confused and hot. She did not know quite clearly what was passing, but she knew he had asked her to do something, and she must do it. "I promise," she said, very faintly.
This time he spoke with the most elaborate clearness of articulation, slowly and with emphasis:
"You promise to make over to me the guardianship of the thing to which I allude as absolutely as though it had been made over to me by your father's will."
"I do."
"Then it is the guardianship of my cousin, Maud Midharst."