Then it came to him in a flash that there must be some urgent reason for her request. People in his class and in that part of the country rarely married unless they were obliged to in accordance with the local custom. He had been caught in the same way as nine out of ten of his married mates. It was like his cursed luck! He wouldn’t believe it. His first feeling was one of bitter rage. He saw himself tied hand and foot, helplessly handed over to the commonest of fates, another fool caught in the web that women spun for a free man’s undoing. He saw in front of him an endless dull routine of life at Mainstone. He saw himself finished, and the idea of paternity gave no consolation to his bitterness. Then, in the same swift vision, he saw the little household at Wolfpits that depended on him for support, and among them the wan, devoted face of Mary Malpas. ‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’ he said at last. ‘How do you know you’re like that?’ She flushed in the dark, with an involuntary affectation of modesty. ‘How dare you?’ she cried. ‘How dare you? I’m not. There’s nothing wrong with me.’ ‘Then what the hell is all this talk of marrying about?’ he cried. ‘What d’you take me for? I’m not that soft?’ He laughed out loud in the suddenness of his relief. It stung her pride to think that he was laughing at her. Anger boiled up in her, and she forgot all her pietistic resolves as she freed herself in abuse. In a single second the penitent had been turned into a virago mad with jealousy, letting fly at him a spate of foul words that she had learned in the taproom. She didn’t stop to think what she was saying. The words swept over her mind in a flood and made her deaf. Then she saw Abner shaking with laughter at her performance and pulled herself together. ‘I’ve finished with you, you great beast!’ she said. ‘A dirty chap that goes running all over the country after women! I’m not going to take turn and turn about with a married woman, so don’t you think it! You and that great stick of a Condover as George Malpas got sick and tired of in three year . . . you and your Mary!’ ‘Here, drop that?’ said Abner darkly. ‘Shut your mouth!’ ‘Drop it?’ she cried. ‘You’re not going to shut my mouth when the whole village is disgusted with you and your goings on . . . and her putting on a face as innocent as a saint and taking the children out for walks, poor little devils! You wait till George comes back and then she’ll show you the back door quick enough. I don’t know what you want taking up with a piece of muck like that. You’re a dirty hypocrite, and as for her . . .’ Abner stopped her mouth, but she fought and struggled. ‘Next time you’d better go farther off than Redlake,’ she spluttered. ‘You dirty, rotten swine!’