“I’m sorry you say that.  You’ve been my guardian angel in a way and I’ve a million things to thank you for from my childhood.  It would be a great grief to me, Aunt Jenny, if you allowed a difference of opinion to make you take such a line.  I hope you’ll think differently.”

“I shall not,” she said.  “I have not told you this on the spur of the moment, or before I had thought it out very fully and very painfully.  But if you do this outrageous thing, I will never be your aunt any more, Raymond, and never wish to see you again as long as I live.  You know me; I’m not hysterical, or silly, or even sentimental; but I’m jealous for your father’s name—­and your brother’s.  You know where duty and honour and solemn obligation point.  There is no reason whatever why you should shirk your duty, or sully your honour; but if you do, I decline to have any further dealings with you.”

He rose to go.

“That’s definite and clear.  Good-bye, Aunt Jenny.”

“Good-bye,” she said.  “And may God guide you to recall that ‘good-bye,’ nephew.”

Then he went back to ‘The Seven Stars,’ and wondered as he walked, how the new outlook had shrunk up this old woman too, and made one, who bulked so largely in his life of old, now appear as of no account whatever.  He was heartily sorry she should have taken so unreasonable a course; but he grieved more for her sake than his own.  She was growing old.  She would lack his company in the time to come, and her heart was too warm to endure this alienation without much pain.

He suspected that if Sabina’s future course of action satisfied Miss Ironsyde, she would be friendly to her and the child and, in time, possibly win some pleasure from them.

CHAPTER XXIX

THE BUNCH OF GRAPES

Raymond proceeded with his business at Bridetown oblivious of persons and personalities.  He puzzled those who were prepared to be his enemies, for it seemed he was becoming as impersonal as the spinning machines, and one cannot quarrel with a machine.

It appeared that he was to be numbered with those who begin badly and retrieve the situation afterwards.  So, at least, hoped Ernest Churchouse, yet, since the old man was called to witness and endure a part of the sorrows of Sabina and her mother, it demanded large faith on his part to anticipate brighter times.  He clung to it that Raymond would yet marry Sabina, and he regretted that when the young man actually offered to see Sabina, she refused to see him.  For this happened.  He came to stop at North Hill House for two months, while certain experts were inspecting the works, and during this time he wished to visit ’The Magnolias’ and talk with Sabina, but she declined.

The very active hate that he had awakened sank gradually to smouldering fires of bitter resentment and contempt.  She spoke openly of destroying their babe when it should be born.