He owned a group of popular provincial newspapers, and was most encouraging.

Sir William had often said to himself: "What can I do for God who has done so much for me ?" It seemed only fair.
He asked her down to his "little place in Hampshire," to talk plans over.
The "little place," it turned out, ran to forty bedrooms, and was surrounded by three hundred acres of park.

God had evidently done his bit quite handsomely.
It was in a secluded corner of the park that Sir William had gone down upon one knee and gallantly kissed her hand.

His idea was that if she could regard herself as his "Dear Lady," and allow him the honour and privilege of being her "True Knight," that, between them, they might accomplish something really useful.

There had been some difficulty about his getting up again, Sir William being an elderly gentleman subject to rheumatism, and Joan had had to expend no small amount of muscular effort in assisting him; so that the episode which should have been symbolical ended by leaving them both red and breathless.
He referred to the matter again the same evening in the library while Lady William slept peacefully in the blue drawing-room; but as it appeared necessary that the compact should be sealed by a knightly kiss Joan had failed to ratify it.
She blamed herself on her way home.