to be not to keep, not to preserve
her brother, but to get rid of him definitely. She did not hope to stop
anything. She had too much sense for that. Almost anyone out of an
idiot asylum would have had enough sense for that. She wanted the
protest to be made, emphatically, with Fyne's fullest concurrence in
order to make all intercourse for the future impossible. Such an action
would estrange the pair for ever from the Fynes. She understood her
brother and the girl too. Happy together, they would never forgive that
outspoken hostility--and should the marriage turn out badly . . . Well,
it would be just the same. Neither of them would be likely to bring
their troubles to such a good prophet of evil.

Yes. That must have been her motive. The inspiration of a possibly
unconscious Machiavellism! Either she was afraid of having a sister-in-
law to look after during the husband's long absences; or dreaded the more
or less distant eventuality of her brother being persuaded to leave the
sea, the friendly refuge of his unhappy youth, and to settle on shore,
bringing to her very door this undesirable, this embarrassing connection.
She wanted to be done with it--maybe simply from the fatigue of
continuous effort in good or evil, which, in the bulk of common mortals,
accounts for so many surprising inconsistencies of conduct.

I don't know that I had classed Mrs. Fyne, in my thoughts, amongst common
mortals. She was too quietly sure of herself for that. But little Fyne,
as I spied him next morning (out of the carriage window) speeding along
the platform, looked very much like a common, flustered mortal who has
made a very near thing of catching his train: the starting wild eyes, the
tense and excited face, the distracted gait, all the common symptoms were
there, rendered more impressive by his native solemnity which flapped
about him like a disordered garment. Had he--I asked myself with
interest--resisted his wife to the very last minute and then bolted up
the road from the last conclusive argument, as though it had been a
loaded gun suddenly produced? I opened the carriage door, and a vigorous
porter shoved him in from behind just as the end of the rustic platform
went gliding swiftly from under his feet. He was very much out of
breath, and I waited with some curiosity for the moment he would recover
his power of speech. That moment came. He said "Good morning" with a
slight gasp, remained very still for another