"Serve me jolly well right."

Mavis did not say any more, at which Perigal got up to leave her.

"I've been a precious fool," he muttered, after glancing at Mavis's
face before moving away.

Devitt scarcely spoke whilst driving Mavis home; consequently, her
thoughts had free play. It would certainly ease her mind, she
reflected, if she made full confession to her husband of the reasons
that impelled her to make his acquaintance and accept his offer of
marriage; but it then occurred to her that this tranquillity of soul
would be bought at the price, not only of his implicit faith in her,
but of his happiness. Therefore, whatever pangs of remorse it was
destined for her to suffer, he must never know; she being the offender,
it was not meet that she should shift the burden of pain from her
shoulders to his. Her sufferings were her punishment for her wrongdoing.

Mrs Devitt and Miss Spraggs were silent when they learned of Mavis's
good fortune; they were torn between enhanced respect for Harold's wife
and concern for Victoria, who had married a penniless man. Mavis could
not gauge the effect of the news on Victoria, as she had gone back to
London after Major Perigal's funeral, her husband remaining at
Melkbridge for the reading of the will. Harold, alone among the
Devitts, exhibited frank dismay at his wife's good fortune.

"Aren't you glad, dearest?" asked Mavis.

"For your sake."

"Why not for yours?"

"It's the thing most likely to separate us."

"Separate us!" she cried in amazement.

"Why not? This money will put you in the place in life you are entitled
to fill."

Mavis stared at him in astonishment.

"With your appearance and talents you should be a great social success
with the people who matter," he continued.

"Nonsense!"

"You undervalue your wonderful self. I should never have been so
selfish as to marry you."

"You don't regret it?"

"For the great happiness it has brought me--no. But when I think how
you might have made a great marriage and had a real home--"

"Aren't we going to have a real home?" she interrupted.

"Are we?"

"If it's love that makes the home, we have one whatever our condition,"
declared Mavis.

"Thank you for saying that. But what I meant was that children are
wanted to make the perfect home."

Mavis's face fell.

"You, with your rare nature, must want to have a child," he continued.
"I don't know which must be worse: for a childless woman to long for a
ch