"I--don't think," said Stephen slowly, "that `angry' is the right word. I'm disappointed--disappointed with a bitterness which has its root in ten long years of hope and effort. Practically I have lived my life through that boy. My great object and desire was to secure for him all that I had missed. I had made no definite promises, it seemed wiser not, but in effect he was my heir, and all I have would have gone to him. Now that's over! The future has been taken from me, as well as the past. America has absorbed him. He has already, through his wife, more money than he can use, and the role of an English country gentleman has lost its attractions for him. There was a time in my first outburst of indignation when I should have felt it a relief to have had some power of retaliation, but, as you say, that passed. ... He was the only person whom I could in any sense claim as my own, and--I've lost him! He is independent of me now. I can do no more for him." The dark eyes were full of pain. "That is, after all, the thing that hurts the most. The lad has faults, but I loved him. I lived through him; now I can do no more, and our lives fall apart. There's a big blank!" Pixie did not answer. Her face was very pale; in her ears was a loud thudding noise, which seemed mysteriously to be inside her own breast. "As for his wife, she may be a good girl--she appears to have behaved in an honourable fashion--but to me it's a new type, and I can't pretend that I'm not prejudiced. There is only one thing that is satisfactory. The boy is honestly in love, even to the extent of abandoning his career to assist in the management of a pickle factory." There was an inflection in the tone in which these last words were pronounced which brought Pixie's eyes upon him in reproach. "They are very _good_ pickles! I can't see that making them is any less dignified than `bulling' and `bearing' cotton--whatever that may mean!-- Stanor used to write of it in his letters. Honor's father loved his workmen, and made her promise to go on looking after them as he had done. She doesn't need any more money; it would be easier for her to retire and hand over the factory to some one else. It's for the men's sake that she keeps it on, and to keep her promise to her father. Mr Glynn, you _must_ love Honor. She's good, and true, and honourable, and she's--Stanor's wife!"