After he and his wife had been married for seven years a little girl was born to them, then later, another. But the husband and wife drew no nearer together. She had an affection for her children almost like a cool governess. He had an emotional man’s fear of sentiment, which helped to nip his wife from putting out any shoots. He treated his children roughly, and pretended to think it a good job when one was adopted by a well-to-do maternal aunt. But in his soul he hated his wife that she could give away one of his children. For after her cool fashion, she loved him. With a chaos of a man such as he, she had no chance of being anything but cold and hard, poor thing. For she did love him. In the end he fell absurdly and violently in love with a rather sentimental young woman who read Browning. He made his wife an allowance and established a new ménage with the young lady, shortly after emigrating with her to Australia. Meanwhile his wife had gone to live with a publican, a widower, with whom she had had one of those curious, tacit understandings of which quiet women are capable, something like an arrangement for provision in the future. This was as much as the nephew knew. He sat beside his uncle, wondering how things stood at the present. They raced lightly out past the cemetery and along the boulevard, then turned into the rather grimy country. The mud flew out on either side, there was a fine mist of rain which blew in their faces. Berry covered himself up. In the lanes the high hedges shone black with rain. The silvery grey sky, faintly dappled, spread wide over the low, green land. The elder man glanced fiercely up the road, then turned his red face to his nephew. “And how’re you going on, lad?” he said loudly. Berry noticed that his uncle was slightly uneasy of him. It made him also uncomfortable. The elder man had evidently something pressing on his soul. “Who are you living with in town?” asked the nephew. “Have you gone back to Aunt Maud?” “No,” barked the uncle. “She wouldn’t have me. I offered to—I want to—but she wouldn’t.” “You’re alone, then?” “No, I’m not alone.” He turned and glared with his fierce blue eyes at his nephew, but said no more for some time. The car ran on through the mud, under the wet wall of the park. “That other devil tried to poison me,” suddenly shouted the elder man. “The one I went to Australia with.” At which, in spite of himself, the younger smiled in secret. “How was that?” he asked. “Wanted to get rid of me. She got in with another fellow on the ship.... By Jove, I was bad.” “Where?—on the ship?” “No,” bellowed the other. “No. That was in Wellington, New Zealand. I was bad, and got lower an’ lower—couldn’t think what was up. I could hardly crawl about. As certain as I’m here, she was poisoning me, to get to th’ other chap—I’m certain of it.” “And what did you do?” “I cleared out—went to Sydney—” “And left her?” “Yes, I thought begod, I’d better clear out if I wanted to live.”