ey's sister,
and very motherly; indeed, she had been terribly upset by the loss of
her only child, a little boy of nine, so she would doubtless welcome the
charge of Roger. At any rate, there would be no harm in letting the
child go to her for a three months' visit.

"I'll settle the whole thing," he said. "You'd better not write; he may
want to meet you."

With distaste she perceived that although he had never done anything
useful for her, he was still capable of being jealous of her, and she
abruptly rose to go. But she delayed for a moment to satisfy a curiosity
that had vexed her for years.

"Tell me," she asked. "How did you get rid of Peacey? Was it money?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "Not altogether. You see, I found out
something about him...."

She walked home slowly, with her head bent, wondering what blood she had
perpetuated.

So, a week later, Susan Rodney came. Her visit was a great humiliation.
She was a woman of thirty-five, strangely and reassuringly unlike her
brother, having a fair, sun-burned skin with a golden down on her upper
lip, and slow-moving eyes, the colour of a blue sky reflected in shallow
floods. She was as clean and useful as a scrubbed deal table. And
because she was wholesome in her soul, she abhorred this woman who was
sending away her own child. During the twenty-four hours she was at
Yaverland's End she ate sparingly, plainly because she felt reluctance
at accepting hospitality from Marion, and rose very early, as if she
found sleeping difficult in the air of this house. This might have been
in part due to the affection she evidently felt for her brother, which
was shown in the proud and grudging responses to Marion's enquiries as
to how he was getting on at Dawlish.

"He's doing ever so well, and he's made the place a picture," she would
begin volubly, and then would toss her head slowly like a teased heifer,
and decide that Marion did not deserve to hear tidings of the glorious
man she had slighted. But the greater part of her loathing was that
which a woman with a simple heart of nature must feel for one who hated
her child, which the sound must feel for the leprous.

Marion could have mitigated that feeling in a great part, not by
explaining, for that was impossible, but by simply showing that she had
suffered, for Susan was a kind woman. Instead she did everything she
could to encourage it. She told no lies, although by now her efforts to
win over the neighbourhood, s