“I think I’ll go out by the side-door,” said Mr. Povey.  “It’ll be nearer.”

This was truth.  He would save about ten yards, in two miles, by going out through the side-door instead of through the shop.  Who could have guessed that he was ashamed to be seen going to the dentist’s, afraid lest, if he went through the shop, Mrs. Baines might follow him and utter some remark prejudicial to his dignity before the assistants? (Mrs. Baines could have guessed, and did.)

“You won’t want that tape-measure,” said Mrs. Baines, dryly, as Mr. Povey dragged open the side-door.  The ends of the forgotten tape-measure were dangling beneath coat and overcoat.

“Oh!” Mr. Povey scowled at his forgetfulness.

“I’ll put it in its place,” said Constance, offering to receive the tape-measure.

“Thank you,” said Mr. Povey, gravely.  “I don’t suppose they’ll be long over my bit of a job,” he added, with a difficult, miserable smile.

Then he went off down King Street, with an exterior of gay briskness and dignified joy in the fine May morning.  But there was no May morning in his cowardly human heart.

“Hi!  Povey!” cried a voice from the Square.

But Mr. Povey disregarded all appeals.  He had put his hand to the plough, and he would not look back.

“Hi!  Povey!”

Useless!

Mrs. Baines and Constance were both at the door.  A middle-aged man was crossing the road from Boulton Terrace, the lofty erection of new shops which the envious rest of the Square had decided to call “showy.”  He waved a hand to Mrs. Baines, who kept the door open.

“It’s Dr. Harrop,” she said to Constance.  “I shouldn’t be surprised if that baby’s come at last, and he wanted to tell Mr. Povey.”

Constance blushed, full of pride.  Mrs. Povey, wife of “our Mr. Povey’s” renowned cousin, the high-class confectioner and baker in Boulton Terrace, was a frequent subject of discussion in the Baines family,, but this was absolutely the first time that Mrs. Baines had acknowledged, in presence of Constance, the marked and growing change which had characterized Mrs. Povey’s condition during recent months.  Such frankness on the part of her mother, coming after the decision about leaving school, proved indeed that Constance had ceased to be a mere girl.

“Good morning, doctor.”

The doctor, who carried a little bag and wore riding-breeches (he was the last doctor in Bursley to abandon the saddle for the dog-cart), saluted and straightened his high, black stock.

“Morning!  Morning, missy!  Well, it’s a boy.”

“What?  Yonder?” asked Mrs. Baines, indicating the confectioner’s.

Dr. Harrop nodded.  “I wanted to inform him,” said he, jerking his shoulder in the direction of the swaggering coward.

“What did I tell you, Constance?” said Mrs. Baines, turning to her daughter.

Constance’s confusion was equal to her pleasure.  The alert doctor had halted at the foot of the two steps, and with one hand in the pocket of his “full-fall” breeches, he gazed up, smiling out of little eyes, at the ample matron and the slender virgin.