reached on the subject."

And Roland listened to all the spoken and unspoken praise given him
with a smiling appropriation. It really never struck him, or
apparently anyone else, that Denas might have been the person who took
care of her own honour; or that Roland had done right because he could
not induce his companion to do wrong. And there was another popular
view of this marriage which was singularly false--the general
assumption that Denas had been greatly honoured by it, and that John
and Joan Penelles ought to be pleased and satisfied. Why not? Such a
decision was the evident one, and how many people have the time or the
interest in any subject to go below or beyond the evident?

One morning when Roland had been put into a very good humour by the
public approval of his conduct, he saw John Penelles and Tris Penrose
and two other fishers go into the Ship Inn together. They had Lawyer
Tremaine with them, and were doubtless met to complete the sale or
purchase of some fishing-craft. Roland knew that it would be an affair
to occupy two or three hours, and he suddenly resolved to go down the
cliff and interview his mother-in-law. It would please Denasia, and he
was himself in that reckless mood of self-complacency which delights
in testing its influence.

Without further consideration he lit a fresh cigar and went down the
familiar path. It was full of memories of his wooing of Denas, and he
smiled with a soft triumph to them. And the exquisite morning, the
thrushes singing to the sun, the fluting of the blackbirds, the south
wind swinging the blue-bells, the mystical murmur of the sea--all
these things set themselves unconsciously to his overweening
self-satisfaction.

The door of the Penelles cottage was wide open, and he stood a moment
looking into it. The place had an Homeric simplicity and beauty which
touched his sense of fitness. On the snow-white hearth there was a
handful of red fire, and the bright black hob held the shining kettle.
A rug of knitted bits of many-coloured cloths was before it, and on
this rug stood John's big cushioned chair. The floor was white as
pipeclay could make it; the walls covered with racks of showy
crockery; the spotless windows quite shaded with blossoming flowers;
and the deal furniture had been scrubbed with oatmeal until it had
the colour and the beauty of ivory.

Joan sat with her back to the door. She was perfectly still. At her
feet there was a pile of nets, and she wa