’Oh! but our boxing-gloves can do mischief enough.  You have something to say, I see.’

‘How do you see?’

‘Tusk, tush.’

The silly ring of her voice and the pathless tattle changed; she talked to suit her laden look.  ’You hit it.  I come from Dudley.  He knows the facts.  I wish to serve you, in every way.’

Victor’s head had lifted.

‘Who was it?’

‘No enemy.’

’Her mother.  She did rightly!

‘Certainly she did,’ said Victor, and he thought that instantaneously of the thing done.  ’Oh, then she spoke to him!  She has kept it from me.  For now nearly a week—­six days—­I’ve seen her spying for something she expected, like a face behind a door three inches ajar.  She has not been half alive; she refused explanations;—­she was expecting to hear from him, of him:—­the decision, whatever it’s to be!’

‘I can’t aid you there,’ said Lady Grace.  ’He’s one of the unreadables.  He names Tuesday next week.’

‘By all means.’

‘She?’

’Fredi?—­poor Fredi!—­ah, my poor girl, yes!—­No, she knows nothing.  Here is the truth of it.—­she, the legitimate, lives:  they say she lives.  Well, then, she lives against all rules physical or medical, lives by sheer force of will—­it’s a miracle of the power of a human creature to . . .  I have it from doctors, friends, attendants, they can’t guess what she holds on, to keep her breath.  All the happiness in life!—­if only it could benefit her.  But it ’s the cause of death to us.  Do you see, dear friend;—­you are a friend, proved friend,’ he took her hand, and held and pressed it, in great need of a sanguine response to emphasis; and having this warm feminine hand, his ideas ran off with it.  ’The friend I need!  You have courage.  My Nataly, poor dear—­she can endure, in her quiet way.  A woman of courage would take her place beside me and compel the world to do her homage, help;—­a bright ready smile does it!  She would never be beaten.  Of course, we could have lived under a bushel—­stifled next to death!  But I am for light, air-battle, if you like.  I want a comrade, not a—­not that I complain.  I respect, pity, love—­I do love her, honour:  only, we want something else—­courage —­to face the enemy.  Quite right, that she should speak to Dudley Sowerby.  He has to know, must know; all who deal closely with us must know.  But see a moment:  I am waiting to see the impediment dispersed, which puts her at an inequality with the world:  and then I speak to all whom it concerns—­not before:  for her sake.  How is it now?  Dudley will ask . . . you understand.  And when I am forced to confess, that the mother, the mother of the girl he seeks in marriage, is not yet in that state herself, probably at that very instant the obstacle has crumbled to dust!  I say, probably:  I have information—­doctors, friends, attendants —­they all declare it cannot last outside