Before a year was over George’s first child was born. There was a great christening party at Wolfpits at which old Mr Condover, having drunk a good deal more than Mrs Malpas approved, confided to her that his newly-born grand-daughter, whom they had christened Gladys, would take the first place in his will. This was exactly what Mrs Malpas had intended from the first, and her satisfaction was so deep that she could almost have forgiven the bailiff his lapse from sobriety in spite of the unfortunate example that he had given to his son-in-law. The intense thankfulness that flooded her heart when she saw George so happily and satisfactorily bound in the chains of domesticity atoned for the troubles that were crowding on her own life. Her husband, who had been ailing for some years, was smitten with a stroke of paralysis from which he never fully recovered. She knew that hard times were coming but faced them cheerfully. For many years Mr Malpas had meant less to her as a husband than as the father of her son. She would do her duty by him—nobody could suggest that she had ever done less—on the surface she would acknowledge him still as the head of her household, but his illness would give her the opportunity of managing the business to her own liking and scraping together, in the years that remained to them, a little money that, added to the small fortune of which Mr Condover had boasted to her at the christening, should make her son secure for life. She even hoped that he might succeed Mr Condover in the care of the Powys estate.