“This is preposterous,” declared Miss Ironsyde.  “The day is fixed and every preparation far advanced.”

“That’s nought to a wayward mind like his.  He’s got in a state now when I wouldn’t trust him a yard.  And I hope to God you’ll hold the reins tight, miss, and not slacken till they’re man and wife.  Once let him see his way clear to bolt, and bolt he will.”

Mr. Churchouse protested, while Jenny only sighed.  Sabina’s mother was echoing her own secret uneasiness, but she lamented that others had marked it as well as herself.

“He is in a very moody state, but never speaks of any change of mind to me.”

“Because he well knows you hold the purse,” said Mrs. Dinnett.  “I don’t want to say anything uncharitable against the man, though I might; but I will say that there’s danger and that I do well to be a miserable woman till the danger’s past.  You tell me to cheer up, and I promise to cheer up quick enough when there’s reason to do so.  Mr. Churchouse here is the best gentleman on God’s earth; but he don’t understand a mother’s heart—­how should he? and he don’t know what a lot women have got to hide from men—­for their own self-respect, and because men as a body are such clumsy-minded fools—­speaking generally, of course.”

To see even Mrs. Dinnett dealing thus in ideas excited Ernest and filled him with interest.  He forgot everything but the principle she asserted and would have discussed it for an hour; but Mary, having thus hit back effectively, departed, and Miss Ironsyde brought the master of ’The Magnolias’ back to their subject.

“There’s a lot of truth in what she says and it shows how trouble quickens the wits,” she declared; “and I can say to you, what I wouldn’t to her, that Raymond is not taking this in a good spirit, or as I hoped and expected.  I feel for him, too, while being absolutely firm with him.  Stupid things were done and the secret of his folly made public.  He has a grudge against them and, of course, that is rather a threatening fact, because a grudge against anybody is a deadly thing to get into one’s mind.  It poisons character and ruins your steady outlook, if it is deep seated enough.”

“Would you say that he bore Sabina a grudge?”

“I’m afraid so; but I do my best to dispel it by pointing out what she thought herself faced with.  And I tell him what is true, that Sabina in her moments of greatest fear and exasperation, always behaved like a lady.  But in your ear only, Ernest, I confess to a new sensation—­a sickly sensation of doubt.  It comes over my religious certainty sometimes, like a fog.  It’s cold and shivery.  Of course from every standpoint of religion and honour and justice, they ought to be married.  But—­”

He stopped her.

“Having named religion and honour and justice, there is no room for ‘but.’  Indeed, Jenny, there is not.”

“Let me speak, all the same.  Other people can have intuitions besides Mrs. Dinnett.  It’s an intuition—­not second sight—­but it is alive.  Supposing this marriage doesn’t really make for the happiness of either of them?”