She looked at him over her shoulder, and saw that he did not recognize her. How, indeed, should he? She had avoided Ada’s wedding, and she was one of a large flock: a face, perhaps, but not a name to him. “I’m Anne Branstone,” she explained. “Sam’s mother; and I’ll not have you blaming Sam for this.” “For the fire?” asked Peter vaguely, he was rather muddled by her brisk incursion. “No,” said Anne, almost gaily; “for the fat that’s in the fire.” She thought she had his measure now--the sort of a man who could live in a dirty room like this, with a choked ash-pan and fire-irons with the rust thick on them. But Peter was greater than that. She judged him by those of his surroundings which had significance for her, and not by books which expressed everything for him and nothing for her. “Mrs. Branstone!” he said, as if realizing now with whom he had to deal. “Sam’s mother,” she repeated, rising from a healthy fire; “and I’ve told you where not to put the blame. You can, maybe, think yourself of the right place to put it.” “Yes,” he surprised her by saying; “on me.” “You! Oh, if you want to go to the back of behind, you can blame Adam and Eve. But that’s not what I meant.” “On me,” he said again. “I consented to this marriage. I sanctioned it.” “Well,” said Anne, “I’ve not come here to crow, but I’ve the advantage of you in that. I did not consent,” and her eye strayed involuntarily to a scar on her hand, memorial of the form of her dissent. “I didn’t consent because I knew they weren’t in love. I told Sam I knew it.” “Then,” said Peter, “you are worthier than I am, Mrs. Branstone.” “Because I knew love matters? There’s nowt so wonderful in knowing that, and nowt so crafty in foreseeing that a marriage where there is no love is marred from start to finish.” “Love matters,” he agreed. “It matters all, for God is love.” “We’ll come to an agreement, you and me,” she said appreciatively. “We’ve the same mind about the root of things.” “This is a terrible business, Mrs. Branstone.” “I’m none denying it. It’s a terrible thing for a man and wife to live together when love’s not a lodger in the house; it’s wrong, and the worst of wrong is that it won’t stay single. Wrong’s got to breed. But, there,” she finished briskly, “I’m telling you what you know, and when all’s said, there’s nowt so bad that it’s past mending.” “Ada wants a divorce,” said Peter, and a sudden glint of triumph came into Anne’s eye, only to vanish as quickly as it came. She had said, without believing it, that Ada might make arrangements, and this was to arrange indeed. It unmade the hollow marriage, it was a solution which really solved, it was a clean cut; and she wanted to glorify Ada, who was proving at the eleventh hour that she had the saving grace of common sense.