‘It is.  She was ill for three months.’  Whilst staying in the country last June she met with an accident.  She went for a long walk alone one day, and in a steep lane she came up with a carter who was trying to make a wretched horse drag a load beyond its strength.  The fellow was perhaps half drunk; he stood there beating the horse unmercifully.  Marcella couldn’t endure that kind of thing—­ impossible for her to pass on and say nothing.  She interfered, and tried to persuade the man to lighten his cart.  He was insolent, attacked the horse more furiously than ever, and kicked it so violently in the stomach that it fell.  Even then he wouldn’t stop his brutality.  Marcella tried to get between him and the animal—­ just as it lashed out with its heels.  The poor girl was so badly injured that she lay by the roadside until another carter took her up and brought her back to the village.  Three months of accursed suffering, and then happily came the end.’

A far, faint echoing of thunder filled the silence of their voices.  Heavy rain splashed upon the pavement.

‘She said to me just before her death,’ resumed Christian, ’"I have ill luck when I try to do a kindness—­but perhaps there is one more chance.”  I didn’t know what she meant till afterwards.  Peak, she has left nearly all her money to you.’

Godwin knew it before the words were spoken.  His heart leaped, and only the dread of being observed enabled him to control his features.  When his tongue was released he said harshly: 

‘Of course I can’t accept it.’

The words were uttered independently of his will.  He had no such thought, and the sound of his voice shook him with alarm.

‘Why can’t you?’ returned Christian.

’I have no right—­it belongs to you, or to some other relative—­ it would be’——­

His stammering broke off.  Flushes and chills ran through him; he could not raise his eyes from the ground.

‘It belongs to no one but you,’ said Moxey, with cold persistence.  ’Her last wish was to do you a kindness, and I, at all events, shall never consent to frustrate her intention.  The legacy represents something more than eight hundred a year, as the investments now stand.  This will make you independent—­of everything and everybody.’  He looked meaningly at the listener.  ’Her own life was not a very happy one; she did what she could to save yours from a like doom.’

Godwin at last looked up.

‘Did she speak of me during her illness?’

’She asked me once, soon after the accident, what had become of you.  As I knew from Earwaker, I was able to tell her.’

A long silence followed.  Christian’s voice was softer when he resumed.

’You never knew her.  She was the one woman in ten thousand—­at once strong and gentle; a fine intellect, and a heart of rare tenderness.  But because she had not the kind of face that’——­

He checked himself.