He replied at once
and she found his arguments and reasons all arrayed and ready to his
tongue. He spoke clearly and stated his case in very lucid language; but
he irritated her by showing that his mind was entirely closed to
argument and that he was not prepared to be influenced in any sort of
way. Her power had vanished now and she saw how only her power, not her
persuasion, had won Raymond before his brother's death. He spoke with
utmost plainness and did not spare himself in the least.

"I've been wrong," he said, "but I'm going to try and be right in the
future. I did a foolish thing and fell in love with a good and clever
girl. Once in love, of course, everything was bent and deflected to be
seen through that medium and I believed that nothing else mattered or
ever would. Then came the sequel, and being powerless to resist, I was
going to marry. For some cowardly reason I funked poverty, and the
thought of escaping it made me agree to marry Sabina, knowing all the
time it must prove a failure. That was my second big mistake, and the
third was asking her to come and live with me without marrying her. I
suggested that, because I wanted her and felt very keen about the child.
I ought not to have thought of such a thing. It wasn't fair to her--I
quite see that."

"Can anything be fair to her short of marriage?"

"Not from her point of view, Aunt Jenny."

"And what other point of view, in keeping with honour and religion,
exists?"

"As to religion, I'm without it and so much the freer. I don't want to
pretend anything I don't feel. I shall always be very sorry, indeed, for
what I did; but I'm not going to wreck my life by marrying Sabina."

"What about her life?"

"If she will trust her life to me, I shall do all in my power to make it
a happy and easy life. I want the child to be a success. I know it will
grow up a reproach to me and all that sort of thing in the opinion of
many people; but that won't trouble me half as much as my own regrets.
I've not done anything that puts me beyond the, pale of humanity--nor
has Sabina; and if she can keep her nerve and go on with her life, it
ought to be all right for her, presently."

"A very cynical attitude and I wish I could change it, Raymond. You've
lost your self-respect and you know you've done a wrong thing. Can't you
see that you'll always suffer it if you take no steps to right it? You
are a man of feeling, and power can't lessen your feeling. Every time
you