He staggered blindly along the road. His head swam with rage, and also, it must be confessed, with something else--for he was not used to drinking whisky, which some obscure local tradition considered the only decent beverage at funerals. His face was flushed, and every now and then something would be whirled round by the wind and whip his cheeks and blind him momentarily in a black cloud. At first he was too confused to grapple with it, but when two long black arms suddenly wound themselves about his neck, nearly choking him, he remembered his hat with the crape weepers, and his rage from red-hot became white-hot and cinerating. He tore off the hat with its long black tails, and flung it into the ditch with a volley of those emasculate oaths which are all the swearing of a Sussex man. Afterwards he felt better, but he was still fuming when he came to Odiam, and dashed up straight to Rose's bedroom, where she lay with the ten-days-old David and a female friend from Rye, who had come in to hear details about her confinement. Both, not to say all three, were startled by Reuben's sudden entrance, crimson and hatless, his collar flying, the dust all over him. "Here! Wot d'you think?" he shouted; "if that old man äun't left all his money to a bastard." "Don't be so excited, Ben," said Rose; "you've no business to come bursting in here like this." "Remember your wife's delicate," said the lady friend. "Well, wot I want to know is why you dudn't tell me all this afore." "How could I? I didn't know how uncle was going to leave his money." "You might have found out, and not let me in fur all this. Here I've bin and gone and spent all your settlements on a milk-round, which I'd never have done if I hadn't thought summat more 'ud be coming in later." "Well, I can't help it. I expect that as uncle knew I was well provided for, married and settled and all that, he thought he'd rather leave his stuff to someone who wasn't." "I like that--and you the most expensive woman to keep as ever was. "Hold your tongue, Ben. I'm surprised at you." "I justabout will speak. A purty mess you've got me into. You ought to have told me before we married as he had a son out in Canada." "I didn't know. This is the first I've heard of it. Anyhow, you surely don't mean to say you married me for my money." "Well, I wouldn't have married you if you hadn't got none." "For Shame!" said the lady friend. Rose burst into tears, and young David, interrupted in the midst of an excellent meal, sent up a piercing wail. "You'd better go downstairs till you know how to speak to your wife properly," said the female from Rye. "My wife's deceived me!" shouted Reuben. "I made sure as she'd come in fur thousands of pounds when old Lardner died, and all she's got out of him is fifty pounds and his lousy furniture." "Furniture?" said Rose, brisking up; "why from what you said I thought there was nothing. I could do with some furniture. I want a bedstead with brass knobs."