tle finger was touching
Bellfield's little finger, as they held the book between them.
Charlie Fairstairs and Mr Cheesacre were watching her narrowly, and
she knew that they were watching her. She was certainly a woman of
great genius and of great courage.

Bellfield, moved by the eloquence of her words, looked with some
interest at the photograph. There was represented there before him,
a small, grey-looking, insignificant old man, with pig's eyes and a
toothless mouth,--one who should never have been compelled to submit
himself to the cruelty of the sun's portraiture! Another widow, even
if she had kept in her book the photograph of such a husband, would
have scrambled it over silently,--would have been ashamed to show it.
"Have you ever seen it, Mr Cheesacre?" asked Mrs Greenow. "It's so
like him."

"I saw it at Yarmouth," said Cheesacre, very sulkily.

"That you did not," said the lady with some dignity, and not a little
of rebuke in her tone; "simply because it never was at Yarmouth. A
larger one you may have seen, which I always keep, and always shall
keep, close by my bedside."

"Not if I know it," said Captain Bellfield to himself. Then the widow
punished Mr Cheesacre for his sullenness by whispering a few words to
the Captain; and Cheesacre in his wrath turned to Charlie Fairstairs.
Then it was that he spake out his mind about the Captain's rank, and
was snubbed by Charlie,--as was told a page or two back.

After that, coffee was brought to them, and here again Cheesacre in
his ill-humour allowed the Captain to out-manoeuvre him. It was the
Captain who put the sugar into the cups and handed them round. He
even handed a cup to his enemy. "None for me, Captain Bellfield; many
thanks for your politeness all the same," said Mr Cheesacre; and
Mrs Greenow knew from the tone of his voice that there had been a
quarrel.

Cheesacre sitting then in his gloom, had resolved upon one
thing,--or, I may perhaps say, upon two things. He had resolved that
he would not leave the room that evening till Bellfield had left it;
and that he would get a final answer from the widow, if not that
night,--for he thought it very possible that they might both be sent
away together,--then early after breakfast on the following morning.
For the present, he had given up any idea of turning his time to
good account. He was not perhaps a coward, but he had not that
special courage which enables a man to fight well under adverse
circumsta