"Mr. Hannay did his best to prevent his meeting her. He knew what she was, and Walter didn't. He took him off in his yacht for weeks at a time, to get him out of her way. When she followed him he brought him back. When she persecuted him--well, I've told you what he did." Anne lifted her hand in supplication, and rose and went to the open window, as if, after that recital, she thirsted for fresh air. Edith smiled, in spite of herself, at her sister-in-law's repudiation of the subject. "Poor Mr. Hannay," said she, "the worst you can say of him now is that he eats and drinks a little more than's good for him." "And that he's married a wife who sets him the example," said Anne, returning from the window-sill refreshed. "She keeps him straight, dear." "Edith! I shall never understand you. You're angelically good. But it's horrible, the things you take for granted. 'She keeps him straight!'" "You think I take for granted a natural tendency to crookedness. I don't--I don't. What I take for granted is a natural tendency to straightness, when it gets its way. It doesn't always get it, though, especially in a town like Scale." "I wish we were out of it." "So did I, dear, once; but I don't now. We must make the best of it." "Has Walter paid any of that money back to Mr. Hannay?" Edith looked up at her sister-in-law, startled by the hardness in her voice. She had meant to spare Anne's pride the worst blow, but something in her question stirred the fire that slept in Edith. "No," she said, "he hasn't. He was going to, but Mr. Hannay cancelled the debt, in order that he might marry--that he might marry you." Anne drew back as if Edith had struck her bodily. She, then, had been bought, too, with Mr. Hannay's money. Without it, Walter could not have afforded to marry her; for she was poor. She sat silent, until her self-appointed hour with Edith ended; and then, still silently, she left the room. And Edith turned her cheek on her cushions and sobbed weakly to herself. "Walter would never forgive me if he knew I'd told her that. It was awful of me. But Anne would have provoked the patience of a saint." Anne owned that Edith was a saint, and that the provocation was extreme. In the afternoon, Edith, at her own request, was forgiven, and Anne, by way of proving and demonstrating her forgiveness, announced her amiable intention of calling on Mrs. Hannay on her "day."