"I will come with pleasure."
The squire felt very chastened and humble as he made his way slowly back to the Manor, through Treliskey Plantation. Magnanimity is rarely lost on anyone, kindness will melt the hardest heart. The squire's pride was being slowly undermined, his arrogance seemed almost a contemptible thing.
By contrast with Ralph's nobler character he began to see how mean and poor was his own. He had prided himself so much on his name and pedigree, and yet he was only beginning to see how unworthy he had proved of both. What, after all, was the mere accident of birth in comparison with moral greatness? Measured by any right standard, Ralph Penlogan was an infinitely better man than he. He had not only intellect, but heart. He possessed that true nobility which enabled a man to forgive his enemy. He was turning in a very literal sense his cheek to the smiter.
Sir John entered the house with a curious feeling of diffidence. His home, and yet not his. The dowager made him welcome, and placed the library and a bedroom above at his disposal for as long as he might care to stay.
Dorothy was delighted to have her father with her again, and yet she was strangely puzzled as to the object of his visit. She was puzzled still more when a little later Ralph Penlogan was shown into the room where she and her father sat.
She rose to her feet in a moment, while a hot blush swept over her neck and face. For a second or two she stood irresolute, and glanced hastily from one to the other. What was the meaning of it all? Her father, instead of glaring angrily at his visitor, received him with the greatest cordiality and even deference, while Ralph advanced with no sign of fear or hesitation.
Neither of them appeared for the moment to be conscious of her presence. Ralph did not even look towards her.
Then her father said in a low voice—
"You can leave us for a little while, Dorothy."
She hurried out of the room with flaming cheeks and fast-beating heart. What could her father want with Ralph Penlogan? What was the mystery underlying his hurried visit? Could it have any reference to herself? Had her father relented? Had he at last come to see that character was more than social position—that a man was great not by virtue of birth, but by virtue of achievement?