“You are an early visitor, Mr. Cossey,” she said.

“Yes,” said her husband, “but the fault is mine.  I have brought Mr. Cossey over to ask if you can give him a lift up to the Castle this afternoon.  I have to go there to lunch, and have borrowed his dogcart.”

“Oh yes, with pleasure.  But why can’t the dogcart come back for Mr. Cossey?”

“Well, you see,” put in Edward, “there is a little difficulty; my groom is ill.  But there is really no reason why you should be bothered.  I have no doubt that a man can be found to bring it back.”

“Oh no,” she said, with a shrug, “it will be all right; only you had better lunch here, that’s all, because I want to start early, and go to an old woman’s at the other end of Honham about some fuchsia cuttings.”

“I shall be very happy,” said he.

“Very well then, that is settled,” said Mr. Quest, “and now I must get my plans and be off to the vestry meeting.  I’m late as it is.  With your permission, Mr. Cossey, I will order the dogcart as I pass your rooms.”

“Certainly,” said Edward, and in another moment the lawyer was gone.

Mrs. Quest watched the door close and then sat down in a low armchair, and resting her head upon the back, looked up with a steady, enquiring gaze, full into Edward Cossey’s face.

And he too looked at her and thought what a beautiful woman she was, in her own way.  She was very small, rounded in her figure almost to stoutness, and possessed the tiniest and most beautiful hands and feet.  But her greatest charm lay in the face, which was almost infantile in its shape, and delicate as a moss rose.  She was exquisitely fair in colouring—­indeed, the darkest things about her were her violet eyes, which in some lights looked almost black by contrast with her white forehead and waving auburn hair.

Presently she spoke.

“Has my husband gone?” she said.

“I suppose so.  Why do you ask?”

“Because from what I know of his habits I should think it very likely that he is listening behind the door,” and she laughed faintly.

“You seem to have a good opinion of him.”

“I have exactly the opinion of him which he deserves,” she said bitterly; “and my opinion of him is that he is one of the wickedest men in England.”

“If he is behind the door he will enjoy that,” said Edward Cossey.  “Well, if he is all this, why did you marry him?”

“Why did I marry him?” she answered with passion, “because I was forced into it, bullied into it, starved into it.  What would you do if you were a defenceless, motherless girl of eighteen, with a drunken father who beat you—­yes, beat you with a stick—­apologised in the most gentlemanlike way next morning and then went and got drunk again?  And what would you do if that father were in the hands of a man like my husband, body and soul in his hands, and if between them pressure was brought to bear, and brought to bear, until at last—­there, what is the good of going on it with—­you can guess the rest.”