“If you think I’ll give her up, Mother——­” he said.

Mrs. Pendyce’s fingers tightened.

“No, dear,” she answered painfully; “of course, if she loves you so much, I couldn’t ask you.  That’s why I——­”

George gave a grim little laugh.

“What on earth can you do, then?  What’s the good of your coming up like this?  How are you to get on here all alone?  I can fight my own battles.  You’d much better go back.”

Mrs. Pendyce broke in: 

“Oh, George; I can’t see you cast off from us!  I must be with you!”

George felt her trembling all over.  He got up and walked to the window.  Mrs. Pendyce’s voice followed: 

“I won’t try to separate you, George; I promise, dear.  I couldn’t, if she loves you, and you love her so!”

Again George laughed that grim little laugh.  And the fact that he was deceiving her, meant to go on deceiving her, made him as hard as iron.

“Go back, Mother!” he said.  “You’ll only make things worse.  This isn’t a woman’s business.  Let father do what he likes; I can hold on!”

Mrs. Pendyce did not answer, and he was obliged to look round.  She was sitting perfectly still with her hands in her lap, and his man’s hatred of anything conspicuous happening to a woman, to his own mother of all people, took fiercer fire.

“Go back!” he repeated, “before there’s any fuss!  What good can you possibly do?  You can’t leave father; that’s absurd!  You must go!”

Mrs. Pendyce answered: 

“I can’t do that, dear.”

George made an angry sound, but she was so motionless and pale that he dimly perceived how she was suffering, and how little he knew of her who had borne him.

Mrs. Pendyce broke the silence: 

“But you, George dear?  What is going to happen?  How are you going to manage?” And suddenly clasping her hands:  “Oh! what is coming?”

Those words, embodying all that had been in his heart so long, were too much for George.  He went abruptly to the door.

“I can’t stop now,” he said; “I’ll come again this evening.”

Mrs. Pendyce looked up.

“Oh, George”

But as she had the habit of subordinating her feelings to the feelings of others, she said no more, but tried to smile.

That smile smote George to the heart.

“Don’t worry, Mother; try and cheer up.  We’ll go to the theatre.  You get the tickets!”

And trying to smile too, but turning lest he should lose his self-control, he went away.

In the hall he came on his uncle, General Pendyce.  He came on him from behind, but knew him at once by that look of feeble activity about the back of his knees, by his sloping yet upright shoulders, and the sound of his voice, with its dry and querulous precision, as of a man whose occupation has been taken from him.

The General turned round.