vase on the table had died yesterday; and the woman who stood in the middle of the room, looking down at her hands and turning her wedding ring on her finger, was not pretty or joyous.  Her face was a smudge of sullenness under hair that was elaborately dressed yet was dull for lack of brushing, and her body drooped within the stiff tower of her thickly-boned Sunday-best dress.  She looked at Marion without curiosity from an immense distance of preoccupation.  There came from a room at the back of the house the strains of “Nearer, my God, to Thee,” played on the harmonium, and at that she made a weak, abstracted gesture of irritation.

“Go and get a basin of water and a bit o’ rag.  The girl’s head’s bleeding,” said Peacey, and she went out of the room obediently.  He collected all the cushions in the room and piled them on the horsehair sofa, and helped her to lie comfortably down on them.  Then he walked to the window, and stood there looking out until Mrs. Cliffe came back into the room.  He took the basin without thanks, and set it down on a chair and began to bathe Marion’s head, while Mrs. Cliffe stood by watching incuriously.

“Now then, Trixy,” he said, not unpleasantly, “you’d best go into the back parlour and listen to your beloved husband playing hymns so trustfully.”

She went away, still without speaking, and Marion, no longer feeling defensive before a stranger, closed her eyes.  Really his fat hands were very gentle, very clever and quick.  After a few moments he had finished, and she was able to turn her face to the wall and talk to her baby that had been saved to her, and to exult that after all she would see those eyes.  She shivered to think how nearly she had lost him, and was transfixed by her hatred of Harry.  She turned hastily and faced the room.

Peacey was watching her with his quiet eyes.  He said in a silken voice, “This sort of thing wouldn’t happen to you if you were married to me.”

She lay quite still, looking at the ceiling.  She knew that what he said was true.

“You’ve looked at me as if I were a pickpocket, you have,” he went on, “just because I want to marry you.  I don’t hold it against you.  You’re young.  That young, that it’s a shame this has happened to you.  But after to-day perhaps you’ll judge me a bit fairer.  You see, I’m older than you, and I’ve seen a bit of the world, and I know how things are.  And I knew you’d have a nasty jar like you had to-day before you were through with it.  And I don’t doubt you’ll have a few more before you’re done.  It ain’t too good for the little one, if you’ll excuse me mentioning it.  You can’t expect a man of any feelings to look on without trying to do what he can.”

She looked up to scan his face for some sign of sincerity, and found herself for the first time wishing that she might find it and have reason to distrust her own dislike of him.  But he was sitting sideways, with his head turned away from her, and she could see nothing of him but his hot black clothes and his fat hand slowly stroking the thigh of his crossed leg in its tight trouser.  A sigh shook the dark bulk of his back.