Again, in their preoccupation, they stood still; this time in a great bank of shadow by the wall of the graveyard half-way up the hill. "So you won't take him from me?" she said; "I will leave Old Chester. You need never see me again." "Good God!" said William King, "do you think that is what I want?" She tried to see his face, but he had turned his back on her so that she stood behind him. Her hands were clasping and unclasping and her voice fluttering in her throat. "You won't take him?" "Mrs. Richie," he said harshly, "do you love that man still?" But before she could answer, he put the question aside. "No! Don't tell me. I've no right to ask. I--don't want to know. I've no right to know. It's--it's nothing to me, of course." He moved as he spoke out into the moonlight, and began to climb the pebbly road; she was a step or two behind him. When he spoke again his voice was indifferent to the point of contempt. "This side is smoother; come over here. I am glad you are not going to marry Mr. Pryor. He is not fit for you to marry." "Not fit for--_me!_" she breathed. "And I am glad you have broken with him. But that has no bearing upon your keeping David. A child is the most precious thing in the world; he must be trained, and--and all that. Whether you marry this man or not makes no difference about David. If you have lived--as you have lived--you ought not to have him. But I started the whole thing. I made Dr. Lavendar give him to you. He didn't want to, somehow; I don't know why. So don't you see? I _can't_ leave him in your care. Surely you see that? I am responsible. Responsible not only to David, but to Dr. Lavendar." "If Dr. Lavendar is willing to let me have him, I don't see why you need to feel so about it. What harm could I do him? Oh, how cruel you are--how cruel you are!" "Would Dr. Lavendar let you have him, if--he knew?" "But that's over; that's finished," she insisted. "Oh, I tell you, it's over!" The doctor's silence was like a whip. "Oh, I know; you think that he was here last week. But there has to be a beginning of everything--that was the beginning. I told him I would not give David up to marry him; and we quarrelled. And--it's over." "I can't go into that," the doctor said. "That's not my business. David is my business. Mrs. Richie, I want you quietly, without any explanation, to give the boy back to Dr. Lavendar. If you don't, I shall have no choice. I shall have to tell him." "But you said you wouldn't tell him! Oh, you break your word--" "I won't tell him your affairs," said William King. "I will never do that. But I'll tell him my own--some of them. I'll say I made a mistake when I advised him to let you have David, and that I don't think you ought to be trusted to bring up a little boy. But I won't say why."