“He didn’t want you to.  That was why.”

“Where is she now?”

“Nobody knows.  She might be anywhere.”

“Not here?”

“No, not here.  My dear, you mustn’t get her on your nerves.”

“I’m afraid of meeting her.”

“It isn’t likely that you ever will.  She isn’t the sort one does meet—­now, poor thing.”

“Who was she?”

“The wife of Sir Andrew Cayley, a tallow-chandler.”

“Oh, how did Walter ever—­”

“My dear, one meets all sorts of funny people in Scale.  He was a very wealthy tallow-chandler.  Besides, it wasn’t he that Walter did meet, naturally.”

“How can you joke about it?  It makes me sick to think of it.”

“It made me sick enough once, dear.  But I don’t think of it.”

“I can’t help thinking of it.”

“Well, whenever you do, when it does come over you—­it will, sometimes—­think of what Walter’s life was before he knew you.  Everything was spoiled for him because of me.  He was sent to a place he detested because of me; put into an office which he loathed, shut up here in this hateful house, because of me.  And he was good to me, good and dear.  Even at the worst he hardly ever left me if he thought I wanted him—­not even to go to her.  But he was young, and it was an awful life for him; you don’t know how awful.  It would have been bad enough for a woman.  It was intolerable for a man.  I was worse then than I am now.  I was horribly fretful, and I worried him.  I think I drove him to her—­I know I did.  He had to get away from it sometimes.  Won’t you think of that?”

“I’ll try to think of it.”

“And it won’t make you not like him?”

“My dear, I liked him first for your sake, then I liked you for his, now I suppose I must like him for yours again.”

“No—­for his own sake.”

“Does it matter which?”

“Not much—­so long as you like him.  He really is angelic, though you mayn’t think it.”

“I think you are.”

Edith was not only angelic, but womanly and full of guile, and she knew with whom she had to do.  She had humbled Anne with shrewd shafts that hit her in all her weak places; now she exalted her.  Anne had not her likeness in a thousand.  She was a woman magnificently planned, of stature not to be diminished by the highest pedestal.  A figure fit for a throne, a niche, a shrine.  Edith could see the dear little downy feathers sprouting on Anne’s shoulder-blades, and the infant aureole playing in her hair.

“You’re a saint,” said Edith.

“I am not,” said Anne, while her pale cheek glowed with the flattery.

“Of course you are,” said Edith, “or you could never have put up with me.”

Whereupon Anne kissed her.

“And I may tell Walter what you’ve said?”

It was thus that she spared Anne’s mortal pride.  She knew how it would shrink from telling him.