‘Well, that’s one comfort,’ she said, with a sigh. ‘I’ve borne enough shame from George without that!’ Then, as her suspicions flashed up again: ‘But I don’t believe you. They don’t let things like that pass.’ ‘I don’t know what you’m after.’ ‘Oh, you’re all the same, you men! You think women are simple enough to be put off with anything. It’s you who are simple. Do you think we don’t know it? I know where George was that night as well as you do. I’ve known of his new fancy for three months now. That woman and me have met one another on the road, and looked at each other and smiled and passed the time of day and not another word, because we knew, both of us, the thing was best hidden and it would humble the two of us if it came to light. But I don’t believe they’d let a thing like that go at a coroner’s inquest.’ She waited for his reply. ‘They said he’d been at Lesswardine. A widow woman, they said, but they didn’t tell her name. That’s the truth.’ ‘Nothing more?’ ‘I tell you that’s the lot. I was neyther piller nor bo’ster. I’d have told you at the first, but I thought to save your feelings.’ ‘Feelings!’ she repeated. ‘There’s better ways of saving a woman’s feelings than keeping the truth from her. That was George’s way. If you guessed anything of what women are like you’d know that it’s the truth they want. You can forgive a man a lot if he doesn’t lie to you.’ Her tone changed suddenly. She became dispassionate, practical, once more. ‘When will it come on at the police court?’ ‘I don’t know. I reckon they won’t keep him long at Lesswardine.’ ‘I shall have to go there,’ she said. ‘Even if he doesn’t want me it’s my place to be there. If I don’t go there George will think that I’ve thrown him over. I would have come to-day if he’d let me, but he begged me not to. He’s funny, like a child, is George.’ Her voice softened when she spoke the last words, as though her imagination had suddenly carried her back to the days of George’s courtship when her father was a hearty, prosperous man and no troubles whatever had entered her life. For the moment she seemed to Abner no more than a child herself. At the first moment he had thought her insensitive, in the next she had put him to shame by her frankness, now she was yielding, pitiful. These alternations of stoicism, passion, and tenderness bewildered him. He had not thought that women were so various. In addition to this she was beautiful. He wondered what perverse strain in George could ever have compelled him to desert her. After another long silence she thanked him for what he had told her, then turned and left him. He heard her talking brightly to the children as though nothing had happened.