Hazel checked a hasty denial that was on her lips. 'What a pity you happened to meet him!' Edward said. 'Ah!' 'But why didn't you want to come at once when I came to fetch you? Were you so afraid of him as that?' 'Ah!' 'Well, it's over now. He won't show his face here again; we've done with him.' Hazel sighed. But whether it was her spiritual self sighing with relief at being with Edward, or her physical self longing for Reddin, she could not have said. 'Only you could come through such an experience unchanged, my sweet,' Edward said. 'I mun go to Foxy!' she cried desperately. 'Foxy wants me.' 'Foxy wants a good beating,' said Mrs. Marston benignly, looking mercifully over her spectacles. Her wrath was generally like the one drop of acid in a dell of honey, smothered in loving-kindness and _embonpoint_. When Hazel had gone, she said: 'You will send her away from here, of course?' Edward went out into the graveyard without a word. He sat on one of the coffin-shaped stones. 'God send me some quiet!' he said. Mrs. Marston came and draped her shawl round him. He got up, despairing of peace, and said he would go to bed. 'There's a good boy! So will I. You'll be as bright as ever in the morning.' Then she whispered: 'You won't keep her here?' 'Keep her! Who? Hazel? Of course Hazel will stay here.' 'It's hardly right.' 'Pleasant, you mean, mother. You never liked her. You want to be rid of her. But how you can so misjudge a beautiful soul I cannot think. I tell you she's as pure as a daisy. Why, she could not even bear, in her maidenly reserve, the idea of marriage. It is sheer blasphemy to say such things.' 'Blasphemy, my dear, is not a thing you can do against people. It is disagreeing with the Lord that is blasphemy.' 'I must ask you, anyway, never to mention Hazel's name to me until you can think of her differently.' When, after saying good night to Hazel and Foxy, Edward had gone to bed, Mrs. Marston shook her head. 'Edward,' she said, 'is not what he was.' She waited till Hazel came in. 'You're no wife for my son,' she said, 'you've sinned with another man.' 'I hanna done nought nor said nought; it's all other folk's doing and saying, so I dunna see as I've sinned. And I never could abear 'ee,' Hazel cried; 'I'd as lief you was dead as quick!' She rushed up to her room and flung herself on her bed sobbing. She felt dazed, like a child taken into a big toy-shop and told to choose quickly. Life had been too hasty with her. There were things, she knew, that she would have liked; but she had so far not had time to find out what they were.