never have got into that trouble if I’d been true to you—if I hadn’t been a fool. I’d no right to expect anything but evil could come of that marriage—and when I shirked doing a father’s part too.”

Nancy was silent; her spirit of rectitude would not let her try to soften the edge of what she felt to be a just compunction. He spoke again after a little while, but the tone was rather changed: there was tenderness mingled with the previous self-reproach.

“And I got you, Nancy, in spite of all; and yet I’ve been grumbling and uneasy because I hadn’t something else—as if I deserved it.”

“You’ve never been wanting to me, Godfrey,” said Nancy, with quiet sincerity. “My only trouble would be gone if you resigned yourself to the lot that’s been given us.”

“Well, perhaps it isn’t too late to mend a bit there; though it is too late to mend some things, say what they will.”