r, only that
he hadn't quite enough honesty to say so before Mummy.

All this he recalled, and the question she had pursued him with about
that time. "_What_ are the sins that do most easily beset us? _What_
are the temptations to which we are especially prone?" And his own
evasive answer. "Ask yourself, my child."

Another year and she had left off asking him questions. She drew back
into herself and became every day more self-willed, more solitary,
more inaccessible.

And now, if he could have seen things as they really were, Mr.
Cartaret would have perceived that he was afraid of Gwenda. As it was,
he thought he was only afraid of what Gwenda might do.

Alice was capable of some things; but Gwenda was capable of anything.

* * * * *

Suddenly, to Gwenda's surprise, her father sighed; a dislocating sigh.
It came between the Benediction and the Lord's Prayer.

For, even as he invoked the blessing Mr. Cartaret suddenly felt sorry
for himself again. His children were no good to him.

By which he meant that his third wife, Robina, was no good.

But he did not know that he visited his wife's shortcomings on their
heads, any more than he knew that he hated Essy and her sin because he
himself was an enforced, reluctant celibate.

XXVII

The next day at dusk, Essy Gale slipped out to her mother's cottage
down by the beck.

Mrs. Gale had just cleared the table after her tea, had washed up
the tea-things and was putting them away in the cupboard when Essy
entered. She looked round sharply, inimically.

Essy stood by the doorway, shamefaced.

"Moother," she said softly, "I want to speaak to yo."

Mrs. Gale struck an attitude of astonishment and fear, although she
had expected Essy to come at such an hour and with such a look, and
only wondered that she had not come four months ago.

"Yo're nat goain' t' saay as yo've got yoresel into trooble?"

For four months Mrs. Gale had preserved an innocent face before her
neighbors and she desired to preserve it to the last possible moment.
And up to the last possible moment, even to her daughter, she was
determined to ignore what had happened.

But she knew and Essy knew that she knew.

"Doan yo saay it, Assy. Doan yo saay it."

Essy said nothing.

"D'yo 'ear mae speaakin' to yo? Caann't yo aanswer? Is it thot, Assy?
Is it thot?"

"Yas, moother, yo knaw 'tis thot."

"An' yo dare to coom 'ear and tell mae! Yo dirty 'oossy