‘It is.’  Mrs. Marsett gathered up for an immediate plunge, and deferred it.  ’I met her—­we went out with the riding-master.  She took to me.  I like her—­I could say’ (the woman’s voice dropped dead low, in a tremble), ’I love her.  She is young:  I could kneel to her.  Do you know a Major Worrell?’

‘Worrell? no.’

’He is a-calls himself a friend of my—­of Captain Marsett’s.  He met us out one day.’

‘He permitted himself to speak to Miss Radnor?’

She rejoiced in Dartrey’s look.  ’Not then.  First let me tell you.  I can hardly tell you.  But Miss Radnor tells me you are not like other men.  You have made your conclusions already.  Are you asking what right I had to be knowing her?  It is her goodness.  Accident began it; I did not deceive her; as soon as ever I could I—­I have Captain Marsett’s promise to me:  at present he’s situated, he—­but I opened my heart to her:  as much as a woman can.  It came!  Did I do very wrong?’

‘I’m not here to decide:  continue, pray.’

Mrs. Marsett aimed at formal speech, and was driving upon her natural in anger.  ’I swear I did it for the best.  She is an innocent girl . . . young lady:  only she has a head; she soon reads things.  I saw the kind of cloud in her.  I spoke.  I felt bound to:  she said she would not forsake me.—­I was bound to!  And it was enough to break my heart, to think of her despising me.  No, she forgave, pitied;—­she was kind.  Those are the angels who cause us to think of changeing.  I don’t care for sermons, but when I meet charity:  I won’t bore you!’

‘You don’t.’

’My . . .  Captain Marsett can’t bear—­he calls it Psalmody.  He thinks things ought always to be as they are, with women and men; and women preachers he does detest.  She is not one to preach.  You are waiting to hear what I have to tell.  That man Major Worrell has tried to rob me of everything I ever had to set a value on:—­love, I ’d say;—­he laughs at a woman like me loving.’

Dartrey nodded, to signify a known sort of fellow.

‘She came here.’  Mrs. Marsett’s tears had risen.  ’I ought not to have let her come.  I invited her—­for once:  I am lonely.  None of my sex—­ none I could respect!  I meant it for only once.  She promised to sing to me.  And, Oh! how she sings!  You have heard her.  My whole heart came out.  I declare I believe girls exist who can hear our way of life—­and I’m not so bad except compared with that angel, who heard me, and was and is, I could take oath, no worse for it.  Some girls can; she is one.  I am all for bringing them up in complete innocence.  If I was a great lady, my daughters should never know anything of the world until they were married.  But Miss Radnor is a young lady who cannot be hurt.  She is above us.  Oh! what a treasure for a man!—­and my God! for any man born of woman to insult a saint, as she is!—­He is a beast!’