is point of view, and he
went on:

"After all, he is a business man. I never met a keener! And if in the
course of business he unfortunately bettered your father in some
transaction, well, how can he be blamed?"

Faith had been listening attentively, but now she broke in vehemently:

"If he is Ralph Scammel, he is a bad man! Peg says so, and Peg is always
right!" And then again, with renewed anguish: "Oh, but it can't be true,
I know it can't."

"If you have that much faith in him," said Mr. Shawyer quickly, "you
must be content to wait till he comes back and ask him yourself. Now,
take my advice and go home, and you will find that already your mother
has repented of her hasty words."

Faith shook her head.

"I don't think so," she said slowly. She knew her mother well in many
ways, and she knew the bitter and relentless hatred with which Mrs.
Ledley had always regarded the "bad man," as the twins called him.

He had robbed her of all happiness. He had brought her and her children
down to poverty. Faith did not think that her mother would ever relent
or forgive.

She went home with dragging steps. Before she entered the house she
slipped off her wedding ring and put it into a pocket. She felt more
free without it, could almost imagine that the whole thing was nothing
more, than a bad dream.

She was afraid to face her mother. She went up to her own little room on
the top floor and sat down at the window.

There was not much to be seen from it but roofs and telegraph poles and
wires, but the sky was blue beyond them all, and against her will Faith
thought of the sea, which she had only seen once, years ago, and of
Nicholas Forrester, who was even then being carried away from her across
its blueness.

Since he said good-bye to her she had many times wished him back again,
but now the thought of him made her shiver. She wished never to see him
any more.

In her childishness she somehow fancied that she had only to say she
regretted her marriage and give back everything he had ever given her to
wipe the episode out of her life. She was thankful now that she had not
spent a shilling of his money. She took it all from its hiding place and
made a little parcel of it, with her wedding ring, and addressed it to
the flat where he had taken her for lunch after their marriage.

He would find it when he came back and understand, she thought. She
slipped out and posted it at once, for fear she should be tempted to
c