There was a smile on his face which Frances, looking up suddenly, warned by a certain change of tone, did not like to see. She kept her eyes upon him instinctively, she could not tell why, with a look which had a certain influence upon him, though he did not well understand it either. It meant that the unknown woman of whom he spoke was the girl’s mother--her mother--one of whom no unbefitting word was to be said. It checked him in a quite curious unexpected way. When he had spoken of her, which he had done very rarely since they parted, it had been with a sense that he was free to characterise her as he thought she deserved. But here he was stopped short. That very evening he had said things to Constance of her mother which in a moment he felt that he dared not say to Frances. The sensation was a very strange one. He made a distinct pause, and then he said hurriedly, “You must not for a moment suppose that there was anything wrong; there is no story that you need be afraid of hearing--nothing, neither on her side nor mine--nothing to be ashamed of.” All at once Frances grew very pale; her eyes opened wide; she gazed at him with speechless horror. The idea was altogether new to her artless mind. It flashed through his that Constance would not have been at all surprised--that probably she would have thought it “nice of him” to exonerate his wife from all moral shortcoming. The holy ignorance of the other brought a sensation of shame to Waring, and at the same time a sensation of pride. Nothing could more clearly have proved the superiority of his training. She would have felt no consternation, only relief at this assurance, if she had been all her life in her mother’s hands. “It is a great deal to say, however, though you are too inexperienced to know. The whole thing was incompatibility--incompatibility of temper, and of ideas, and of tastes, and of fortune even. I could not, you may suppose, accept advantages purchased with my predecessor’s money, or take the good of his rank through my wife; and she would not come down in the world to my means and to my name. It was an utter mistake altogether. We should have understood each other beforehand. It was impossible that we could get on. But that was all. There was probably more talk about it than if there had been really more to talk about.” Frances rose up with a little start. “I think, perhaps,” she said, “I don’t want you to tell me any more.” “Well--perhaps you are right.” But he was startled by her quick movement. “I did not mean to say anything that could shock you. If you are to hear anything at all, the truth is what you must hear. But you must not blame me over-much, Frances. Your very impatience of what I have been saying will explain to you why I thought that to say nothing--as long as I could help it--was the best.”