‘Her name Winifred!’ I cried, with a pang at my heart as sharp as though there had been a reasonable hope till now.

‘In course her name was Winifred.’

‘Liar!  How came she to be called Winifred?’

’Well, I’m sure!  Mayn’t a Welshman’s wife give her own on’y Welsh darter a Welsh name?  Us poor folks is come to somethink!  P’raps you’ll say I ain’t a Welshman’s wife next?  It’s your own cussed lot as killed her, ain’t it?  What did I tell the shiny Quaker when fust I tookt her to the studero?  I sez to the shiny un, “She’s jist a bit touched here,” I sez’ (tapping her own head), ’"and nothink upsets her so much as to be arsted a lot o’ questions,” I sez to the shiny un.  “The less you talks to her,” I sez, “the better you’ll get on with her,” I sez, “and the better kind o’ pictur you’ll make out on her,” I sez to the shiny un; “an’ don’t you go an’ arst who her father is,” I sez, “for that word ’ull bring such a horful look on her face,” I sez, “as is enough to skear anybody to death.  I sha’n’t forget the look the fust time I seed it,” I sez.  That’s what I sez to the shiny Quaker.  An’ yit you did go an’ worrit ‘er, a-arstin’ ’er a lot o’ questions about ’er father.  You did—­I know you did!  You must ’a done it—­so no lies; for that wur the on’y thing as ever skeared ‘er, arstin’ ’er about ’er father, pore dear....Why, man alive! what are you a-gurnin’ at? an’ what are you a-smackin’ your forred wi’ your ‘and like that for, an’ a-gurnin’ in my face like a Chessy cat?  Blow’d if I don’t b’lieve you’re drunk.  An’ who the dickens are you a-callin’ a fool, Mr. Imperance?’

It was not the woman but myself I was cursing when I cried out,
‘Fool! besotted fool!’

Not till now had the wild hope fled which had led me back to the den.  As I stood shuddering on the doorstep in the cold morning light, while the whole unbearable truth broke in upon me, I could hear my lips murmuring,

’Fool of ancestral superstitions!  Fenella Stanley’s fool!  Philip Aylwin’s fool!  Where was the besotted fool and plaything of besotted ancestors, when the truth was burning so close beneath his eyes that it is wonderful they were not scorched into recognising it?  Where was he when, but for superstitions grosser than those of the negroes on the Niger banks, he might have saved the living heart and centre of his little world?  Where was the rationalist when, but for superstitions sucked in with his mother’s milk, he would have gone to a certain studio, seen a certain picture which would have sent him on the wings of the wind to find and rescue and watch over the one for whom he had renounced all the ties of kindred?  Where was then the most worthy descendant of a line of ancestral idiots—­Romany and Gorgio—­stretching back to the days when man’s compeers, the mammoth and the cave-bear, could have taught him better?  Rushing down to Raxton church to save her!—­to save her by laying a poor little trinket upon a dead man’s breast!’