Winton drew his breath in sharply: 

“Who?  Summerhay?”

“Yes; I used to think I should never be in love, but you knew better.”

Better!

In disconsolate silence, he thought rapidly:  ’What’s to be done?  What can
I do?  Get her a divorce?’

Perhaps because of the ring in her voice, or the sheer seriousness of the position, he did not feel resentment as when he lost her to Fiorsen.  Love!  A passion such as had overtaken her mother and himself!  And this young man?  A decent fellow, a good rider—­comprehensible!  Ah, if the course had only been clear!  He put his hand on her shoulder and said: 

“Well, Gyp, we must go for the divorce, then, after all.”

She shook her head.

“It’s too late.  Let him divorce me, if he only will!”

Winton needed all his self-control at that moment.  Too late?  Already!  Sudden recollection that he had not the right to say a word alone kept him silent.  Gyp went on: 

“I love him, with every bit of me.  I don’t care what comes—­whether it’s open or secret.  I don’t care what anybody thinks.”

She had turned round now, and if Winton had doubt of her feeling, he lost it.  This was a Gyp he had never seen!  A glowing, soft, quick-breathing creature, with just that lithe watchful look of the mother cat or lioness whose whelps are threatened.  There flashed through him a recollection of how, as a child, with face very tense, she would ride at fences that were too big.  At last he said: 

“I’m sorry you didn’t tell me sooner.”

“I couldn’t.  I didn’t know.  Oh, Dad, I’m always hurting you!  Forgive me!”

She was pressing his hand to her cheek that felt burning hot.  And he thought:  “Forgive!  Of course I forgive.  That’s not the point; the point is—­”

And a vision of his loved one talked about, besmirched, bandied from mouth to mouth, or else—­for her what there had been for him, a hole-and-corner life, an underground existence of stealthy meetings kept dark, above all from her own little daughter.  Ah, not that!  And yet—­was not even that better than the other, which revolted to the soul his fastidious pride in her, roused in advance his fury against tongues that would wag, and eyes that would wink or be uplifted in righteousness?  Summerhay’s world was more or less his world; scandal, which—­like all parasitic growths—­flourishes in enclosed spaces, would have every chance.  And, at once, his brain began to search, steely and quick, for some way out; and the expression as when a fox broke covert, came on his face.

“Nobody knows, Gyp?”

“No; nobody.”

That was something!  With an irritation that rose from his very soul, he muttered: 

“I can’t stand it that you should suffer, and that fellow Fiorsen go scot-free.  Can you give up seeing Summerhay while we get you a divorce?  We might do it, if no one knows.  I think you owe it to me, Gyp.”