By lunch-time the next day she had not dared to say a word.  ’If I say nothing,’ she thought, ‘he may write it of his own accord.’

Without attracting his attention, therefore, she watched every movement of his morning.  She saw him sitting at his bureau with a creased and crumpled letter, and knew it was Bellew’s; and she hovered about, coming softly in and out, doing little things here and there and in the hall, outside.  But the Squire gave no sign, motionless as the spaniel John couched along the ground with his nose between his paws.

After lunch she could bear it no longer.

“What do you think ought to be done now, Horace?”

The Squire looked at her fixedly.

“If you imagine,” he said at last, “that I’ll have anything to do with that fellow Bellew, you’re very much mistaken.”

Mrs. Pendyce was arranging a vase of flowers, and her hand shook so that some of the water was spilled over the cloth.  She took out her handkerchief and dabbed it up.

“You never answered his letter, dear,” she said.

The Squire put his back against the sideboard; his stiff figure, with lean neck and angry eyes, whose pupils were mere pin-points, had a certain dignity.

“Nothing shall induce me!” he said, and his voice was harsh and strong, as though he spoke for something bigger than himself.  “I’ve thought it over all the morning, and I’m d—–­d if I do!  The man is a ruffian.  I won’t knuckle under to him!”

Mrs. Pendyce clasped her hands.

“Oh, Horace,” she said; “but for the sake of us all!  Only just give him that assurance.”

“And let him crow over me!” cried the Squire.  “By Jove, no!”

“But, Horace, I thought that was what you wanted George to do.  You wrote to him and asked him to promise.”

The Squire answered: 

“You know nothing about it, Margery; you know nothing about me.  D’you think I’m going to tell him that his wife has thrown my son over—­let him keep me gasping like a fish all this time, and then get the best of it in the end?  Not if I have to leave the county—­not if I——­”

But, as though he had imagined the most bitter fate of all, he stopped.

Mrs. Pendyce, putting her hands on the lapels of his coat, stood with her head bent.  The colour had gushed into her cheeks, her eyes were bright with tears.  And there came from her in her emotion a warmth and fragrance, a charm, as though she were again young, like the portrait under which they stood.

“Not if I ask you, Horace?”

The Squire’s face was suffused with dusky colour; he clenched his hands and seemed to sway and hesitate.

“No, Margery,” he said hoarsely; “it’s—­it’s—­I can’t!”

And, breaking away from her, he left the room.

Mrs. Pendyce looked after him; her fingers, from which he had torn his coat, began twining the one with the other.