‘And I can’t cut it!  Paramor says so!  A gambler!’

That “crassness” common to all men in this strange world, and in the Squire intensified, was rather a process than a quality—­obedience to an instinctive dread of what was foreign to himself, an instinctive fear of seeing another’s point of view, an instinctive belief in precedent.  And it was closely allied to his most deep and moral quality—­the power of making a decision.  Those decisions might be “crass” and stupid, conduce to unnecessary suffering, have no relation to morality or reason; but he could make them, and he could stick to them.  By virtue of this power he was where he was, had been for centuries, and hoped to be for centuries to come.  It was in his blood.  By this alone he kept at bay the destroying forces that Time brought against him, his order, his inheritance; by this alone he could continue to hand down that inheritance to his son.  And at the document which did hand it down he looked with angry and resentful eyes.

Men who conceive great resolutions do not always bring them forth with the ease and silence which they themselves desire.  Mr. Pendyce went to his bedroom determined to say no word of what he had resolved to do.  His wife was asleep.  The Squire’s entrance wakened her, but she remained motionless, with her eyes closed, and it was the sight of that immobility, when he himself was so disturbed, which drew from him the words: 

“Did you know that George was a gambler?”

By the light of the candle in his silver candlestick her dark eyes seemed suddenly alive.

“He’s been betting; he’s sold his horse.  He’d never have sold that horse unless he were pushed.  For all I know, he may be posted at Tattersalls!”

The sheets shivered as though she who lay within them were struggling.  Then came her voice, cool and gentle: 

“All young men bet, Horace; you must know that!”

The Squire at the foot of the bed held up the candle; the movement had a sinister significance.

“Do you defend him?” it seemed to say.  “Do you defy me?”

Gripping the bed-rail, he cried: 

“I’ll have no gambler and profligate for my son!  I’ll not risk the estate!”

Mrs. Pendyce raised herself, and for many seconds stared at her husband.  Her heart beat furiously.  It had come!  What she had been expecting all these days had come!  Her pale lips answered: 

“What do you mean?  I don’t understand you, Horace.”

Mr. Pendyce’s eyes searched here and therefor what, he did not know.

“This has decided me,” he said.  “I’ll have no half-measures.  Until he can show me he’s done with that woman, until he can prove he’s given up this betting, until—­until the heaven’s fallen, I’ll have no more to do with him!”

To Margery Pendyce, with all her senses quivering, that saying, “Until the heaven’s fallen,” was frightening beyond the rest.  On the lips of her husband, those lips which had never spoken in metaphors, never swerved from the direct and commonplace, nor deserted the shibboleth of his order, such words had an evil and malignant sound.