, but I do know! You say it
yourself quite often. `Poor Mary.' _Why_ am I poor Mary... whose fault
is it that I have missed my chance?"

"I think you are forgetting yourself, Mary. You talk very strangely,
very--indelicately, I must say. I suppose you mean that you are not
married. You can hardly call that my fault!"

"I am not so sure. What chance did you give me? If I'd been a boy you
would have sent me to college, and paid money to give me a start, but I
was only a girl, and it was cheaper to have a governess than to send me
to a good school. So I was educated at home, and made no friends. That
meant no visits, no change, but just Chumley always Chumley, and the
five or six young men I'd known all my life. I could count up on two
hands all the marriageable men I have met in the last ten years. It
bored you to entertain, so we had no young people here till Teresa came
home. I was not pretty nor clever, but I should have made a good wife.
Some man might have loved me... If you had given me a chance I might
have been happy now, living in my own home."

There was a dead silence. Mrs Mallison was too shocked to speak. Of
all her emotions this was predominant. She was shocked. Shocked that a
spinster daughter should openly regret marriage and a mate, shocked that
such feelings should find vent in words, shocked that a man--albeit her
own husband--should be present to hear such sentiments emerge from
virgin lips. Shocked for Teresa, the bride, down whose cheeks large
tears were rolling. Mrs Mallison believed them to be tears of shame,
but in reality they betokened the purest sympathy and regret.

Major Mallison stared with glassy eyes. Suddenly he cleared his throat
and spoke, and the sound of his voice caused yet another shock to the
hearers. Another dumb creature had found his voice.

"The girl is right," he said. "She speaks the truth. I wish she had
spoken before." He paused for a moment painfully rumpling the
tablecloth. "It would have been kinder to speak out, Mary. I should
have endeavoured to meet you. But thirty-two is not old. You can still
enjoy your life. As for the money, I wish you all to understand one
thing: I require no help, and I accept no help. What is necessary and
suitable for my household, I can supply. I have done so in the past,
and can do so for the future. Your fortune is your own, Mary. Do with
it as you please. We need no contribution. You hear that, Marga