-that's the question?" Sabina answered.
"There's only one choice for you--between letting him finish your
education and going out to work."

"We'll live in Bridport, then," he told her, "and I'll go into something
with machinery. I'll soon rise, and I might rise high enough to ruin him
yet, some day. And never you forget he had my offer and turned it down.
He didn't know what he was doing when he did that."

"He couldn't trust you. How was he to know you wouldn't try to burn the
works again--and succeed next time?"

Abel laughed.

"That was a fool's trick. If they'd gone, he'd only have built 'em
again, better. But there are some things he can't insure."

"I know a good few spinners at Bridport. Shall I have a look round for
you?" she asked, as they rose to return.

He considered and agreed.

"Yes, if it's only through you. I trust you not to go to him about it.
If you did and I found you had--"

"No, no. I'll not go to him."

He came and looked again at the motor car that had brought her. It
interested him as keenly as before.

"That's for him to go about the country in, because he's standing for
Parliament," explained Sabina.

But his anger was spent. He heeded her no more, and even the fact that
his father owned the car did not modify his deep interest.

He rode a mile or two with her when she started to return and remained
silent and rapt for the few minutes of the experience.

His mother tried to use the incident.

"If you was to be good and patient and let the right thing be done, I
daresay in a few years you'd rise to having a motor of your own," she
said, when they stopped and he started to trudge back.

"If ever I do, I'll get it for myself," he answered. "And when you're
old, I'll drive you about, very likely."

He left her placidly, and it was understood that in a month he would
return to her as soon as she had determined on their immediate future.

For herself she knew that it would be necessary to deceive him, yet
feared to attempt it after the recent conversation. She felt uneasily
proud of him.

CHAPTER XVIII

SWAN SONG

The doctor said Mr. Churchouse was dying because he didn't wish to go on
living, and when Estelle taxed the old man with his indifference, he
would not deny it.

"I have lived long enough," he said. "The machine is worn out. My
thinking is become a painful effort. I forget the simplest matters, and
before you are a nuisance to yourself, you may feel ver