Mrs. Pettifer laughed, moved by the remarkable depreciation of her own sex which women of her type so often have.  It was for man to throw the handkerchief.  Not a doubt but there would be a rush to pick it up!

“Widowers who have been devoted to their wives marry again,” she argued.

“A point for me, Margaret!” returned Pettifer.  “Widowers—­yes.  They miss so much—­the habit of a house with a woman its mistress, the companionship, the order, oh, a thousand small but important things.  But a man who has remained a bachelor until he’s thirty-four—­that’s a different case.  If he sets his heart at that age, seriously, for the first time on a woman and does not get her, that’s the kind of man who, my experience suggests to me—­I put it plainly, Margaret—­will take one or more mistresses to himself but no wife.”

Mrs. Pettifer deferred to the worldly knowledge of her husband but she clung to her one clear argument.

“Nothing could be worse,” she said frankly, “than that he should marry a guilty woman.”

“Granted, Margaret,” replied Mr. Pettifer imperturbably.  “Only suppose that she’s not guilty.  There are you and I, rich people, and no one to leave our money to—­no one to carry on your name—­no one we care a rap about to benefit by my work and your brother’s fortune—­no one of the family to hand over Little Beeding to.”

Both of them were silent after he had spoken.  He had touched upon their one great sorrow.  Margaret herself had her roots deep in the soil of Little Beeding.  It was hateful to her that the treasured house should ever pass to strangers, as it would do if this the last branch of the family failed.

“But Stella Ballantyne was married for seven years,” she said at last, “and there were no children.”

“No, that’s true,” replied Pettifer.  “But it does not follow that with a second marriage there will be none.  It’s a chance, I know, but—­” and he got up from his chair.  “I do honestly believe that it’s the only chance you and I will have, Margaret, of dying with the knowledge that our lives have not been altogether vain.  We’ve lighted our little torch.  Yes, and it burns merrily enough, but what’s the use unless at the appointed mile-stone there’s another of us to take it and carry it on?”

He stood looking down at his wife with a wistful and serious look upon his face.

“Dick’s past the age of calf-love.  We can’t expect him to tumble from one passion to another; and he’s not easily moved.  Therefore I hope very sincerely that these reports which I am now going to read will enable me to go boldly to Harold Hazlewood and say:  ’Stella Ballantyne is as guiltless of this crime as you or I.’”

Mr. Pettifer took up the big envelope which he had placed on the table beside him and carried it away to his study.

CHAPTER XIX

PETTIFER’S PLAN