her oath because her stepuncle was a wealthy and childless man.  She was, of course, wrong.  Nor was this her only indiscretion.  She was so ridiculously indiscreet as to influence her husband in such a way that he actually succeeded in life.  Had James perceived them to be struggling in poverty, he might conceivably have gone over to them and helped them, in an orgy of forgiving charity.  But the success of young Rathbone falsified his predictions utterly, and was, further, an affront to him.  Thus the quarrel slowly crystallised into a permanent estrangement, a passive feud.  Everybody got thoroughly accustomed to it, and thought nothing of it, it being a social phenomenon not at all unique of its kind in the Five Towns.  When, fifteen years later, Rathbone died in mid-career, people thought that the feud would end.  But it did not.  James wrote a letter of condolence to his niece, and even sent it to Longshaw by special messenger in the tramcar; but he had not heard of the death until the day of the funeral, and Mrs. Rathbone did not reply to his letter.  Her independence and sensitiveness were again in the wrong.  James did no more.  You could not expect him to have done more.  Mrs. Rathbone, like many widows of successful men, was “left poorly off.”  But she “managed.”  Once, five years before the scene on the park terrace, Mrs. Rathbone and James had encountered one another by hazard on the platform of Knype Railway Station.  Destiny hesitated while Susan waited for James’s recognition and James waited for Susan’s recognition.  Both of them waited too long.  Destiny averted its head and drew back, and the relatives passed on their ways without speaking.  James observed with interest a girl of twenty by Susan’s side—­her daughter.  This daughter of Susan’s was now sharing the park bench with him.  Hence the hidden drama of their meeting, of his speech, of her reply.

“And what’s your name, lass?”

“Helen.”

“Helen what?”

“Helen, great-stepuncle,” said she.

He laughed; and she laughed also.  The fact was that he had been aware of her name, vaguely.  It had come to him, on the wind, or by some bird’s wing, although none of his acquaintances had been courageous enough to speak to him about the affair of Susan for quite twenty years past.  Longshaw is as far from Bursley, in some ways, as San Francisco from New York.  There are people in Bursley who do not know the name of the Mayor of Longshaw—­who make a point of not knowing it.  Yet news travels even from Longshaw to Bursley, by mysterious channels; and Helen Rathbone’s name had so travelled.  James Ollerenshaw was glad that she was just Helen.  He had been afraid that there might be something fancy between Helen and Rathbone—­something expensive and aristocratic that went with her dress and her parasol.  He illogically liked her for being called merely Helen—­as if the credit were hers!  Helen was an old Ollerenshaw name—­his grandmother’s (who had been attached to the household of Josiah Wedgwood), and his aunt’s.  Helen was historic in his mind.  And, further, it could not be denied that Rathbone was a fine old Five Towns name too.