an.'"

The Rector glowered.

"What expression then----"

Mr. Pendyce's voice, to which the intimate trouble of his thoughts lent a
certain dignity, broke in:

"Gentlemen, this is a question concerning the honour of my house."

There was another and a longer silence, during which Mr. Paramor's eyes
haunted from face to face, while beyond the rose a smile writhed on his
lips.

"I suppose you have brought me down here, Pendyce, to give you my
opinion," he said at last. "Well; don't let these matters come into
court. If there is anything you can do to prevent it, do it. If your
pride stands in the way, put it in your pocket. If your sense of truth
stands in the way, forget it. Between personal delicacy and our law of
divorce there is no relation; between absolute truth and our law of
divorce there is no relation. I repeat, don't let these matters come
into court. Innocent and guilty, you will all suffer; the innocent will
suffer more than the guilty, and nobody will benefit. I have come to
this conclusion deliberately. There are cases in which I should give the
opposite opinion. But in this case, I repeat, there's nothing to be
gained by it. Once more, then, don't let these matters come into court.
Don't give people's tongues a chance. Take my advice, appeal to George
again to give you that promise. If he refuses, well, we must try and
bluff Bellew out of it."

Mr. Pendyce had listened, as he had formed the habit of listening to
Edmund Paramor, in silence. He now looked up and said:

"It's all that red-haired ruffian's spite. I don't know what you were
about to stir things up, Vigil. You must have put him on the scent." He
looked moodily at Gregory. Mr. Barter, too, looked at Gregory with a
sort of half-ashamed defiance.

Gregory, who had been staring at his untouched wineglass, turned his
face, very flushed, and began speaking in a voice that emotion and anger
caused to tremble. He avoided looking at the Rector, and addressed
himself to Mr. Paramor.

"George can't give up the woman who has trusted herself to him; that
would be playing the cur, if you like. Let them go and live together
honestly until they can be married. Why do you all speak as if it were
the man who mattered? It is the woman that we should protect!"

The Rector first recovered speech.

"You're talking rank immorality," he said almost good-humouredly.

Mr. Pendyce rose.

"Marry her!" he cried. "What on earth--that'