if she didn't
belong to you at all, that I should be afraid that I'd spoil her life
just as I've always spoiled my own.

"I expect this is all very confused. It's all so difficult and you don't
want long explanations, but I'm only trying to say that you needn't ever
have any fear again that I'm going to step in or try to have any part in
her. We've got our things together that nobody can take from us. We've
seen each other so little that most people would say it wasn't much to
give up. But things don't happen only when you're together...." He
stopped suddenly, seemed to stand there confused, turned and flung a
fierce, defiant look at his grandmother--exactly the glance that an
angry small boy flings at someone in authority who has seen fit to
punish him--then went back to his corner and stood there in the shadow,
watching them all.

Even as he finished speaking he had realized finally that his
relationship with Rachel was over, closed, done for. He had known it on
that afternoon in the park--He had realized it perhaps again in the
heart of the storm last night, but now, when he had seen the soul
pierce, through Rachel's eyes, to her husband, he knew that Roddy, one
way or another, had at last won her.

Moreover, to anyone as impressionable as Breton, Roddy's helplessness,
his humour, his bravery had, on the score of Roddy alone, settled the
matter. Breton had his fierce moments, his high inspirations, his noble
resolves!... Now, as he looked this last time upon Rachel, his was no
mean spirit.

Rachel drew a sharp breath and looked at Roddy with wide eyes, flooded
with fear. He had heard now everything that they had to say; although
she had watched him so closely she could not say what he would do. As
she saw the two men there before her she felt that she knew Francis
Breton exactly, that she could tell what he would say, how he would see
things, what would anger him or surprise him.

But about Roddy she was always uncertain: she was only now, very slowly,
beginning to know him, but she was sure that if Roddy were to beat her
she would care for him the more, but if Francis Breton were to beat her
she would leave him for ever.

A flush meanwhile was rising over Roddy's neck, up into his face, to the
very roots of his hair.

"It's rather beastly," he said, speaking very slowly and trying to
choose his words, "all this talkin'. I might have known, if I'd been
able to think about it, what it would be like, but ther