self be bound down by your own
experience--"

"You'd better go," she said. "If you'd spoken, so twelve years ago on
Golden Cap, and not hid your heart and lied to me and promised what you
never meant to perform, I'd not be walking the world a lonely, despised
woman to-day. And law, or no law, the law of the natural child is the
law of the land--cruel and vile though it may be."

"I'll go, Sabina; but I must say what I want to say, first. I must stand
up for Abel--even against you. Childish impressions and dislikes can be
rooted out if taken in time; if left to grow, they get beyond reach. So
I ask you to think of him. And don't pretend to yourself that my
friendship is dangerous, or can do him anything but good. I'm very
different from what I was. Life hasn't gone over me for nothing. I know
what's right well enough, and I know what I owe your son and my son, and
I want to make up to him and more than make up to him for his
disadvantages. Don't prevent me from doing that. Give me a chance,
Sabina. Give me a chance to be a good father to him. Your word is law
with him, and if you left Bridetown and took him away from all the
rumours and unkind things he may hear here, it would let his mind grow
empty of me for a few years; and then, when he's older and more
sensible, I think I could win him."

"You want us away from this place."

"I do. I never should have spoken to you until I knew you wished it, but
for this complication; but since the boy is growing up prejudiced
against me, I do feel that some strong effort should be taken to nip his
young hatred in the bud--for his sake, Sabina."

"Are you sure it's all for his sake? Because I'm not. They say you think
of nothing on God's earth but machinery nowadays, and look to machines
to do the work of hands, and speak of 'hands' when you ought to speak of
'souls.' They say if you could, you'd turn out all the people and let
everything be done by steam and steel. There's not much humanity in you,
I reckon. And why should you care for one little, unwanted boy?
Perhaps, if you looked deeper into yourself, you'd find it was your own
peace, rather than his, that's making you wish us away from Bridetown.
At any rate, that's how one or two have seen and said it, when they
heard how everybody was at me to go. I've had to live down the past for
long, slow, heart-breaking years and seen the fingers pointed at me; and
now, with the child growing up, it's your turn I daresay, and you-