‘I must talk it over with Mr Fellows,’ said Mary. ‘Mr Fellows?’ ‘My lodger.’ ‘Oh . . . yes, I see . . .’ said the vicar’s wife. That evening Abner came in tired from a day’s work in the rain. His clothes were soaked; they steamed as he stood before the fire and filled the room with a harsh odour of wool and sweat. She told him calmly of her visitor and of the proposal that she had made. She did not say a word of her own inclinations. ‘What about the kids?’ he asked. ‘I couldn’t take them with me. They would go to the workhouse.’ ‘To hell with the work’us!’ said Abner. ‘Not likely! What do they take you for?’ Mary smiled. She told him what they took her for. Abner was seized with rage. ‘They’re a dirty lot of swine, that’s what they are!’ he said. ‘By God, I’d like to tell ’em of it!’ ‘It’s natural,’ she said. ‘It looks like that.’ ‘And what the hell does it matter what it looks like, so long as there bain’t nothing wrong? Old George knows it’s all right, and he’m the only one as matters.’ She did not answer. ‘An’ what’s the difference you being here with me or living alone with that there parson?’ ‘He’s a clergyman,’ she said. ‘A clergyman, is he?’ Abner cried. ‘A clergyman! I like that!’ It pleased her, in her heart, to see him so moved. ‘Well, what do you think of it?’ she said quietly. ‘If you want to go, like you did before when you were at home, this is your chance.’ He stood scowling in front of the fire. He couldn’t make her out. When he left the court at Shrewsbury he had set himself to a deliberate line of conduct and determined to go through with it. When they had spoken of it before it had seemed to him that he and Mary were agreed on it and that nothing could change it until George’s return. Even now he couldn’t bring himself to believe that she wanted to make a change. He knew her quiet passion for the children too well to think that anything could tempt her to abandon them to the care of strangers. Also he knew her pride. He believed that her pride and nothing else was keeping her from telling him exactly what she felt. It was useless for her to pretend to him that she had no feelings. It struck him that she was not playing the game. When a man and woman were placed in their position anything but the most complete confidence in each other was unfair. He would force her to say what she thought. Even if it humbled her he would force her to speak. ‘It’s naught to do with me,’ he said. ‘If you want to go, you go, and that’s all that matters.’ She was silent for a long time. ‘If you want to go, you go,’ he repeated. At last she spoke, very quietly. ‘I don’t want to go,’ she said.