Then there came upon Patty one of those curses of life which fall upon women with a bitterness and horror of which probably the inflictors of the pain are never fully aware. It would have been bad enough if this had befallen her in her natural position as the wife of a country tradesman or small farmer. Domestic misery is the same in one class as in another; yet it would be vain to deny the aggravations that a higher position adds to primitive anguish of this kind. The cottager is not so much ashamed of her husband’s backslidings. In many cases they are the subject of the long monologue of complaint that runs through her life. They cannot be hid, and they become a sort of possession, the readiest excuse for every failing of her own. But that the young master should stumble night after night up to Greyshott; that he should be seen by all the neighbourhood drinking among the dull rustics at the Seven Thorns; that a crowd of servants should listen and peep to hear his unsteady step, and his boisterous laugh, and the stammerings of excuse or explanations, or worse still, of noisy mirth, bursting from him in the middle of the quiet night--was something more terrible still. Patty--on that first occasion, when, long after every one else was in bed, she stole downstairs to admit him by that little door near the beech avenue, to which his unsteady footsteps naturally turned--was horrified and angry beyond description; but she did not doubt she could put a stop to it. Not for a moment did she hesitate as to her power. It should never happen again, she said to herself. Once was nothing. Henceforward she would be on her guard. He should not escape from her another time. She did not even upbraid Gervase--it was her own fault, who had never thought of that, taken no precautions; but it should never, never, she said to herself, with, perhaps unnecessary asseverations, happen again. Gervase, upbraided as in sport by his laughing wife for forsaking her, as if he had been a naughty child, did nothing but laugh and triumph in reply. “Weren’t they just astonished to see me!” he said: “your father opened his mouth like this,” opening his own large mouth with the moist hanging under-lip. “You should ha’ seen him, you should ha’ seen him, Patty--like I was a ghost! ‘Hallo!’ said he, and ‘Hallo!’ said I, ‘here I am, you see.’ There wasn’t one of them could say a word; but afterwards I stood treat, and we had a jolly night.” “And, oh, how you did smell of beer, you naughty fellow, when you came in!” “Did I? Well, not without reason, neither,” said Gervase, with his loud laugh; “a set of jolly old cocks when you set them going. We only wanted you there in your old blue dress and your apron.” “That you will never see again, I can tell you; and it isn’t very nice of you, Gervase, wishing your wife in such a place.”