Mr. Pendyce had listened, as he had formed the habit of listening to Edmund Paramor, in silence.  He now looked up and said: 

“It’s all that red-haired ruffian’s spite.  I don’t know what you were about to stir things up, Vigil.  You must have put him on the scent.”  He looked moodily at Gregory.  Mr. Barter, too, looked at Gregory with a sort of half-ashamed defiance.

Gregory, who had been staring at his untouched wineglass, turned his face, very flushed, and began speaking in a voice that emotion and anger caused to tremble.  He avoided looking at the Rector, and addressed himself to Mr. Paramor.

“George can’t give up the woman who has trusted herself to him; that would be playing the cur, if you like.  Let them go and live together honestly until they can be married.  Why do you all speak as if it were the man who mattered?  It is the woman that we should protect!”

The Rector first recovered speech.

“You’re talking rank immorality,” he said almost good-humouredly.

Mr. Pendyce rose.

“Marry her!” he cried.  “What on earth—­that’s worse than all—­the very thing we’re trying to prevent!  We’ve been here, father and son—­father and son—­for generations!”

“All the more shame,” burst out Gregory, “if you can’t stand by a woman at the end of them——!”

Mr. Paramor made a gesture of reproof.

“There’s moderation in all things,” he said.  “Are you sure that Mrs. Bellew requires protection?  If you are right, I agree; but are you right?”

“I will answer for it,” said Gregory.

Mr. Paramor paused a full minute with his head resting on his hand.

“I am sorry,” he said at last, “I must trust to my own judgment.”

The Squire looked up.

“If the worst comes to the worst, can I cut the entail, Paramor?”

“No.”

“What?  But that’s all wrong—­that’s——­”

“You can’t have it both ways,” said Mr. Paramor.

The Squire looked at him dubiously, then blurted out: 

“If I choose to leave him nothing but the estate, he’ll soon find himself a beggar.  I beg your pardon, gentlemen; fill your glasses!  I’m forgetting everything!”

The Rector filled his glass.

“I’ve said nothing so far,” he began; “I don’t feel that it’s my business.  My conviction is that there’s far too much divorce nowadays.  Let this woman go back to her husband, and let him show her where she’s to blame”—­his voice and his eyes hardened—­“then let them forgive each other like Christians.  You talk,” he said to Gregory, “about standing up for the woman.  I’ve no patience with that; it’s the way immorality’s fostered in these days.  I raise my voice against this sentimentalism.  I always have, and I always shall!”

Gregory jumped to his feet.

“I’ve told you once before,” he said, “that you were indelicate; I tell you so again.”