’Yes, yes.  Nancy laughs at it—­calls it old rubbish.  These young people are so clever.’

His companion made no remark.  Unobserved, he scrutinised her face for a long time, and said at length: 

’Don’t let us fall out, Mary.  You’re not pleased with me, and I know why.  I said all women were deceitful, and you took it too seriously.  You ought to know me better.  There’s something comes on me every now and then, and makes me say the worst I can no matter who it hurts.  Could I be such a fool as to think ill of you?’

‘It did hurt me,’ replied the other, still bent over her book.  ’But it was only the sound of it.  I knew you said more than you meant.’

’I’m a fool, and I’ve been a fool all my life.  Is it likely I should have wise children?  When I went off to the Barmbys’, I thought of sending Samuel down to Teignmouth, to find out what they were at.  But I altered my mind before I got there.  What good would it have done?  All I can do I’ve done already.  I made my will the other day; it’s signed and witnessed.  I’ve made it as I told you I should.  I’m not much longer for this world, but I’ve saved the girl from foolishness till she’s six-and-twenty.  After that she must take care of herself.’

They sat silent whilst the clock on the mantelpiece ticked away a few more minutes.  Mr. Lord’s features betrayed the working of turbid thought, a stern resentment their prevailing expression.  When reverie released him, he again looked at his companion.

’Mary, did you ever ask yourself what sort of woman Nancy’s mother may have been?’

The listener started, like one in whom a secret has been surprised.  She tried to answer, but after all did not speak.

‘I’ll tell you,’ Stephen pursued.  ’Yes, I’ll tell you.  You must know it.  Not a year after the boy’s birth, she left me.  And I made myself free of her—­I divorced her.’

Their eyes just met.

’You needn’t think that it cost me any suffering.  Not on her account; not because I had lost my wife.  I never felt so glad, before or since, as on the day when it was all over, and I found myself a free man again.  I suffered only in thinking how I had fooled away some of the best years of my life for a woman who despised me from the first, and was as heartless as the stones of the street.  I found her in beggary, or close upon it.  I made myself her slave—­it’s only the worthless women who accept from a man, who expect from him, such slavish worship as she had from me.  I gave her clothing; she scarcely thanked me, but I thought myself happy.  I gave her a comfortable home, such as she hadn’t known for years; for a reward she mocked at my plain tastes and quiet ways—­but I thought no ill of it—­could see nothing in it but a girlish, lighthearted sort of way that seemed one of her merits.  As long as we lived together, she pretended to be an affectionate wife; I should think no one ever matched her in hypocrisy.  But the first chance she had—­husband, children, home, all flung aside in a moment.  Then I saw her in the true light, and understood all at once what a blind fool I had been.’