“But at any rate whether the fathers or God are the real scape-goats it’s quite original nowadays to profess faith in justice, and to refrain from railing against the Almighty, so we’ll let God and heredity have a rest; besides, we are losing the pauper scent and getting that of the country—did you catch that whiff? I am glad we are down this hill, the horses are unaccountable.” “Hengist actually looks like kicking,” said Gwen. “Bell, get off, will you, I believe there’s a fly somewhere I can’t spot.” “Sure enough, three on ’em, sir; and them horses is mortal thin-skinned since their clipping yesterday.” “What a duffer I was,” said Strange to his wife, “not to look at them before we started, they are probably not half groomed and are tickling like the deuce, and I can’t even have the satisfaction of swearing about it properly, as I was every bit as careless myself.” A quick little conviction shot into Gwen, that whatever God and the general ruck of fathers might be, her husband was just enough. This silenced her for two solid miles. When they got near the Inn, Strange suggested that they had better stay and lunch there. “Oh, yes, it really doesn’t matter,” she said. “I wonder what does, in her present mood!” thought Strange, as he helped her down. As ill-luck would have it, a wretched faint feeling she had experienced once or twice before, came on her, and she reeled a little in her husband’s hands. He looked at her in the most utter astonishment, he hadn’t fathomed her yet it seemed. “Are you ill?” he asked. She blushed suddenly. “No, my foot got twisted in my shoe-lace.” “The girl is lying,” he thought, with a most unpleasant shock. He brought her into a small, clean, quaint old room, fragrant with mignonette, a bunch stood in a glass on the cottage piano and there was a long green box full of it on the window-sill. “Now sit in here in the shade,” he said, “and take off your hat, and rest.” He stood for a moment and watched her, then he arranged the pillows on the couch and made her lie down, with an involuntary protecting manner quite unlike his usual airs of equality and sexlessness. That lie had made her all at once so young to him, so infinitely pathetic. He could have taken her in his arms like a little child, and hushed her to sleep. When he had gone she clenched her hands in a rage. “One can’t call one’s soul one’s own with such a man!” she muttered, “it’s bondage worse than death. Talk of that cobbler, he’s not the only man who holds his wife’s soul on an awl—oh, the horrible, horrible, horrible indecency of marriage without love! And this vile pretence of fair living!” she went on, sitting up and staring out of the window, “the jokes we have together, and the talks!” She got up and went about the room examining the curiosities, the stuffed birds, and the shells, and the awful oleographs. “What’s this?” she said, lifting the glass from some glittering object, but she dropped it as if it stung her.