ey eyes.

"Criminal!" she said. "No."

"But you seem to feel you have done a wrong?"

"No," she said. "I only think, 'If they knew!'"

"If they knew, they'd cease to understand. As it is, they do understand,
and they like it. What do they matter? Here, with only the trees and me,
you don't feel not the least bit wrong, do you?"

He took her by the arm, held her facing him, holding her eyes with his.
Something fretted him.

"Not sinners, are we?" he said, with an uneasy little frown.

"No," she replied.

He kissed her, laughing.

"You like your little bit of guiltiness, I believe," he said. "I believe
Eve enjoyed it, when she went cowering out of Paradise."

But there was a certain glow and quietness about her that made him glad.
When he was alone in the railway-carriage, he found himself tumultuously
happy, and the people exceedingly nice, and the night lovely, and
everything good.

Mrs. Morel was sitting reading when he got home. Her health was not good
now, and there had come that ivory pallor into her face which he never
noticed, and which afterwards he never forgot. She did not mention her
own ill-health to him. After all, she thought, it was not much.

"You are late!" she said, looking at him.

His eyes were shining; his face seemed to glow. He smiled to her.

"Yes; I've been down Clifton Grove with Clara."

His mother looked at him again.

"But won't people talk?" she said.

"Why? They know she's a suffragette, and so on. And what if they do
talk!"

"Of course, there may be nothing wrong in it," said his mother. "But you
know what folks are, and if once she gets talked about--"

"Well, I can't help it. Their jaw isn't so almighty important, after
all."

"I think you ought to consider HER."

"So I DO! What can people say?--that we take a walk together. I believe
you're jealous."

"You know I should be GLAD if she weren't a married woman."

"Well, my dear, she lives separate from her husband, and talks on
platforms; so she's already singled out from the sheep, and, as far as
I can see, hasn't much to lose. No; her life's nothing to her, so what's
the worth of nothing? She goes with me--it becomes something. Then she
must pay--we both must pay! Folk are so frightened of paying; they'd
rather starve and die."

"Very well, my son. We'll see how it will end."

"Very well, my mother. I'll abide by the end."

"We'll see!"

"And she's--she's AWFULLY nice, mother; she is really! You don't