really, for religious people don't care how they intrigue, if
they can bring off what they want to happen. It was very strange she
refused to see me. Perhaps they never told her that I offered to come."

"Yes, they did, because Estelle heard Churchouse tell her. Estelle was
with her at the time, and she said she was so sorry when Sabina refused.
It may have been because she was ill, of course."

"I must see her before I go away, anyway. If they've been poisoning her
mind against me, I must put it right."

"You're a rum 'un! Can't you see what this means to her? You talk as if
she'd no grievance, and as though it was all a matter of course and an
everyday thing."

"So it is, for that matter. However, there's no reason for you to bother
about it. I quite recognise what it is to be a father, and the
obligations. But because I happen to be a father, is no reason why I
should be asked to do impossibilities. Because you've made a fool of
yourself once is no reason why you should again. By good chance I've had
unexpected luck in life and things have fallen out amazingly well--and
I'm very willing indeed that other people should share my good luck and
good fortune. I mean that they shall. But I'm not going to negative my
good fortune by doing an imbecile thing."

"As long as you're sporting I've got no quarrel with you," declared
Waldron. "I'm not very clever myself, but I can see that if they won't
let you do what you want to do, it's not your fault. If they refuse to
let you play the game--but, of course, you must grant the game looks
different from their point of view. No doubt they think you're not
playing the game. A woman's naturally not such a sporting animal as a
man, and what we think is straight, she often doesn't appreciate, and
what she thinks is straight we often know is crooked. Women, in fact,
are more like the other nations which, with all their excellent
qualities, don't know what 'sporting' means."

"I mean to do right," answered Raymond, "and probably I'm strong enough
to make them see it and wear them down, presently. I'm really only
concerned about Sabina and her child. The rest, and what they think and
what they don't think, matter nothing. She may listen to reason when
she's well again."

Two days later Raymond received a box from London and showed Estelle an
amazing bunch of Muscat grapes, destined for Sabina.

"She always liked grapes," he said, "and these are as good as any in the
world at thi