it. You go and do this utterly silly
and horrible thing, and then instead of making the best you can of it
for everybody's sake, you go on blundering worse and worse. Such utter
ignorance of the world ... such utter ignorance of your own self ... how
d'you think you're going to manage without Ansdore? Why, it's your very
life--you'll be utterly lost without it. Think of yourself, starting an
entirely new life at your age--nearly forty. It's impossible. You don't
know what you're letting yourself in for. But you'll find out when it's
too late, and then both you and your unfortunate child ull have to
suffer."

"If I married Bert I couldn't keep on Ansdore. He wouldn't marry me
unless I came to London--I know that now. He's set on business. I'd have
to go and live with him in a street ... then we'd both be miserable, all
three be miserable. Now if I go off alone, maybe later on I can get a
bit of land, and run another farm in foreign parts--by Chichester or
Southampton--just a little one, to keep me busy. Reckon that ud be fine
and healthy for my child ..."

"Your child seems to be the only thing you care about. Really to hear
you talk, one ud almost think you were glad."

"I am glad."

Ellen sprang to her feet.

"There's no good going on with this conversation. You're quite without
feeling and quite without shame. I don't know if you'll come to your
senses later, and not perhaps feel quite so _glad_ that you have ruined
your life, disgraced your family, broken my heart, brought shame and
trouble into the life of a good and decent man. But at present I'm sick
of you."

She walked towards the door.

"Ellen," cried Joanna--"don't go away like that--don't think that of me.
I ain't glad in that way."

But Ellen would not turn or speak. She went out of the door with a
queer, white draggled look about her.

"Ellen," cried Joanna a second time, but she knew it was no good....

Well, she was alone now, if ever a woman was.

She stood staring straight in front of her, out of the little flower-pot
obscured window, into the far distances of the Marsh. Once more the
Marsh wore its strange, occasional look of being under the sea, but this
time it was her own tears that had drowned it.

"Child--what if the old floods came again?" she seemed to hear Martin's
voice as it had spoken in a far-off, half forgotten time.... He had
talked to her about those old floods, he had said they might come again,
and she had said they co