fan them to flame again; but the result of his attitude served to weaken hers.  She did not argue with conviction after finding his temper.  By some evil chance, that seemed more like art than accident, he struck old wounds, and she was interested and agitated to find that now he knew all there was to be known of the past and its exact significance.  The dream hidden so closely in her heart:  that there might yet be a reconciliation—­the dream finally killed when she perceived that Ironsyde had fallen in love with Estelle Waldron—­was no dream in her son’s mind.  What she knew was impossible, till now represented no impossibility to him.  He actually declared it as a thing which, in his moral outlook, ought to be.  Only so could the past be retrieved, or the future made endurable.  But to that matter they did not immediately come.  She dined at the farmer’s table with Abel and three men.  Then he was told that he might make holiday and spend the afternoon with his mother where he pleased.  He took her therefore to the old barrows nigh Knapp, and there on a stone they sat, watched the sun sink over distant woodlands and talked together till the dusk was down.

“I ought never to have trusted her,” he said.  “But I did.  And, if I’d thought she would ever have married him, I wouldn’t have trusted her.  I thought she was the right sort; but if she was, she would never have married a man who had sworn to marry you.”

“Good gracious, Abel!  Whatever are you talking about?” she asked, concerned to find the matter in his mind.

“I’m talking about things that happened,” he answered.  “I’m not a child now.  I’m nearly seventeen and older than that, for I overheard two of the men say so.  You needn’t tell me these things; I found them out for myself, and I hated Raymond Ironsyde from the time I could hate anybody, because the honest feeling to hate him was in me.  And nobody has the right to marry him but you, and he’s got no right to marry anybody but you.  But he doesn’t know the meaning of justice, and she is not fine, or brave, or clever, or any of the things I thought she was, because she wants to marry him.”

His mother considered this speech.

“It’s no good vexing yourself about the past,” she said.  “You and me have got to look to the future, Abel, and not to dwell on all that don’t make the future any easier.  It’s difficult enough, but, for us, the luxury of pride and hate isn’t possible.  I know very well what you feel.  It all went through me like fire before you were born—­and after; but we’ve got to go on living, and things are going to change, and we must cut our coats according to our cloth—­you and me.”

“What does that mean?” he asked.

“It means we’re not independent.  There’s not enough for your education and my keep.  So it’s got to be him, or one other, and the other is an old woman—­his aunt.  But it’s all the same really, and he’ll see that it comes out of his pocket in the end.  He’s all powerful and we must do according.  Christianity’s a very convenient thing for the likes of us.  It teaches that the meek are blessed and the weak the worthy ones.  You must look to your father if you want to succeed in the world.”