"Wonderful!" said Simon Quarle, nodding his head slowly. "Most remarkable. And so you sell up everything here—and you start for the country—eh? House cost much?"
"I have merely—merely rented it—hired it for a period," said Meggison.
"What I shall do with you," said Quarle, with a bullying shake of his head at him, "will be to keep my eye on you. You've been doing something mysterious—something you don't want talked about; I shall find out presently what it is. You never were any good, you know—and you never will be. Don't wave your arms about, and don't splutter at me; bluster is the last dog that will frighten me. So far as you're concerned I don't care a snap of the fingers—but I do care about the girl."
"Sir—you are not the only one who cares about the girl," retorted Daniel Meggison. "It is for her sake that I have done this; it is on her account alone that I propose burying myself in the country, and having what will probably prove a devilish dull time of it. I decline to answer any further questions; it is no affair of yours."
He went away again on that hunt for Byfield; with the creeping on of the hours his courage had fallen more and more. He had burnt his boats, in the sense that even his daughter now was ranged against him in that mad business of giving up what had, at the best and the worst, been a livelihood for them all. He had hoped that she would have been content to take her cue from him, and to march a little behind his stride; he was appalled, now that he came to look at the thing from a common-sense point of view, to see that she was bringing to bear upon this new situation the characteristic energy that had helped her in the old one. He had forced her to be self-reliant in the past; that self-reliance now might well prove the undoing of them all.
He was returning from a hurried visit to the Arcadia Arms when he met Gilbert Byfield in the street. He essayed a rather nervous "Good morning, Mr. Byfield, sir"; but it halted on his tongue as Byfield frowningly took him by the arm, and turned him round, and walked with him up the street. Without a word that young man conducted him to the door of that house in which he had taken a lodging; took him upstairs; and having got him into the room where the desk littered with papers stood, thrust him unceremoniously into a chair, and looked at him sternly over folded arms.
"Now, Mr. Daniel Meggison—let me know what the game is," said Gilbert.
"Game, Mr. Byfield, sir?" asked Daniel innocently. "I'm sure, so far as I'm concerned, there ain't any game; if I've been a bit playful in mentioning matters—a joke's a joke—and I——"
"There is no joke about this, Meggison," broke in Gilbert. "I want you to understand from the beginning that this is to be merely a holiday for the girl; whatever innocent lie you tell must not go beyond that. My cottage at Fiddler's Green is at your disposal for a few weeks; and that will be the end of it."
"Have I said different?" pleaded Daniel passionately. "A bit of money was what I've come into, and no more than that. I'll own that last night, Mr. Byfield, sir, I was excited—exhilarated—perhaps a little unduly happy. Mine has been a hard life, and if I may be said to have looked upon the rosy wine in a joyful moment, is that always to be thrown up in my face for ever after? Is there to be no charity extended to me?"