In one culminating fit of choleric rage the Squire rode over to the farm. He found Roger Pettingdale in the corn-field, looking at the growing wheat.
"Look here, Pettingdale," he burst forth fiercely. "This nonsense must be stopped. Are you an idiot, that you cannot see what is going on, or are you in the scheme to entrap my----"
"I beg your pardon, Squire Leigh?" he said quietly, as one who had not heard aright.
"Tut! Nonsense!" retorted the Squire. "Don't 'beg-your-pardon' me! You know full well what I mean. Are you blind? I say it must be stopped! You know full well that that precious son of mine has gone stark mad over that chit of a girl of yours!"
"And what of that, Squire Leigh?" replied Roger Pettingdale, drawing himself to his full height and looking at the Squire from underneath his heavy eyebrows. "If that precious son of yours has gone stark mad over my daughter, what of that?"
"Why, this," thundered the Squire: "that it must be stopped!"
"Very well, why don't you stop it?" replied Roger Pettingdale.
The retort, perfectly cool and natural, laid bare all the Squire's impotence at one stroke, and drove him well-nigh to frenzy. His eyes shot fire, and those veins in his forehead swelled as though they would burst.
"It is not my daughter who is coming to the Hall after your son," Roger Pettingdale went on. "It is your son who is coming here after my daughter. You seem to forget that point. You say it must be stopped. And I repeat--Why don't you stop it?"
"It is as I thought," shouted the enraged Squire. "You are all in it--all of you. All in the scheme to entrap him! A pretty plot, don't you call it, for a man who poses as a Christian?"
In a blind access of fury he took a step forward and raised his riding-whip. And then his shaking arm fell to his side, for Roger Pettingdale had laid a hand upon his shoulder, and was confronting him with grave, kindly, pitying eyes.
"You are in anger, Squire Leigh," he said, with simple dignity, "else I should take your words as an insult. Be sure that the Pettingdales have not fallen so low, nor their womenkind either, that they need to trap the son of Squire Leigh. But I tell you this, as man to man: if your son truly loves my daughter, and if she loves him in return, I will put no bar before my child's happiness; no, not for you, nor for all the Leighs in the world. We come of as good a stock as you, Squire! Remember that! More money and more land maybe you have--but not more pride of family. I care naught for your money or your land. Thank God! I have prospered beyond all expectation. And I tell you again, straight to your face, if your son comes to me and asks for my daughter's hand, and I find it is for her happiness, I shall say 'Yes.'"