A sudden gust of anger swept over Marion. Scarcely knowing what she did, she picked up the cut-glass whisky decanter and sent it crashing into the fire. The flames roared up the chimney; blue tongues of lighted spirit ran out over the hearthrug. ‘Marion! My God, you’re mad!’ he cried. ‘You’ll set the house afire! What do you think you’re doing?’ He snatched a rug from the sofa and went down on his knees stifling the flame. She burst out into a fit of uncontrollable laughter. He stared at her, frightened. ‘What are you laughing at?’ he cried. ‘I don’t know,’ she said weakly. ‘I felt I must break something. What an awful mess!’ The outburst had sobered her, and more than that the sight of her father’s scared and innocent face. ‘It’s all right now,’ she said. ‘I’ll fetch a cloth from the kitchen.’ He looked so bewildered that she couldn’t help laughing at him. ‘I’m damned if I can make you out,’ he said. ‘Of course you can’t. You’ve not the least idea. . .’ ‘Then it’s all right?’ he said solemnly. The dawning relief in his face was too much for her. She knelt down on the carpet beside him and kissed his head. ‘Oh, dad, you’re too killing!’ she said. ‘Do you think I can’t look after myself?’ ‘Well, thank Heaven for that!’ was all he could say. They talked the matter out more soberly that evening over the embers of the fire when Ethel had been sent off to bed. They were as happy in each other’s company and as tender as lovers who have quarrelled and made it up again. The moment of vision had faded for ever. The room in which they sat had regained its old familiarity in Marion’s eyes, forcing itself to be accepted as her home; Mr Prosser was no longer a coarse, fair-whiskered man with more than a drop of whisky in him, but the father whom she had always known; the sombre life of The Dyke, with its slow, rich comfort, was the life to which she had been born. And she considered what would be the effect on that life of her marrying Abner Fellows, for if her father’s suspicions had been justified there was no doubt but that he would have compelled the lover to make an honest woman of her. No happiness worth the daring lay in that direction. She knew that she could hope for nothing but a continual clashing of the two men’s wills and herself a buffer between them. Her father had a long memory for his hates. There could never be any peace in the house till he died. Rather than submit to such a humiliation she would cut herself free from The Dyke and share Abner’s life. Love in a cottage with a vengeance! But did he love her? She had no real reason to believe it. And did she love him? She could not say. Better, far better, cling to the certainties, whatever they might be. ‘We’ll say no more about it,’ said Mr Prosser. ‘Let bygones be bygones, eh?’