“She has, and you’ll bear no grudge for that. You’d have lived in a pig-sty and fed like a pig if I’d none sent Kate to do for you, but I’ve come myself this time. It looks summat beyond Kate.” “But what’s happened? What is it?” “You know better than me what it is. You’ve got folks talking of you and they’ve talked to Ada. Unfaithful, she told Kate, and she’s gone home to Peter’s.” “She must come back,” said Sam. “And why?” asked Anne. “Because folk talk? To stop their mouths?” “No. Because I want her here. They’re talking, are they? Well, they can.” Anne looked at him. “You don’t care if they do?” “Why should I?” “And you a politician?” “Oh, politics!” he said. “That’s gone.” It had, and, as he saw thankfully, at the right time. He tried to imagine how differently this would have affected him if it had come in the midst of the Sandyford election. Electors postulate respectability in a candidate. But that had gone, and gossip did not matter now. The real things mattered. Ada mattered. “You’ve had a move on, then,” she said, and neither her look nor tone suggested that she found the move displeasing. “I daresay,” he said carelessly. “But Ada must come back. I’ve got to get her back.” “Happen she’ll come and happen she won’t, and I’d have a better chance of knowing which if you’d told me what’s upset her.” “What did she say?” he asked. “Unfaithful? Yes, it’s true. I’ve been unfaithful for ten years. I’ve never been faithful and I’ve never been fair. I’ve thought of the business and politics when I ought to have been thinking of her. I worked at them and I didn’t work at Ada. Don’t blame Ada, mother. I’ll not have that. You never liked her, and you prophesied a failure. It’s been a failure, but I made it one; I let it drift when I ought to have taken hold. But it isn’t going to be a failure now. I’ve given up the other things and I’ve come back to my job, the job I neglected, the job I did not see was there at all until----” He paused. “Till what?” she asked. “Till Effie showed it me.” “Effie?” she asked. “Oh! Then there’s something in their talk.” “Something? There’s everything, and everything that’s wrong-headed and abominable. That’s where this hurts me, mother. They’ll be saying wrong things of her, of Effie.” He began to see that gossip mattered. “What would be the right things to say?” asked Anne dryly. “Who’s Effie? And do you mean her when you say you’ve been unfaithful for ten years?” “I meant what I said. That I’ve put other things in front of Ada.” “Including Effie?” “Effie’s a ray from heaven,” he said. “Oh, aye,” said Anne sceptically. “Look here, mother, you’re not going to misunderstand?” “Not if you can make me understand.” “I can try,” he said, “and the chances are that I shall fail. The only thing that will make you understand Effie is to see her.” “Try the-other ways first,” said Anne grimly.