A sudden remembrance of the shabby vicarage assailed her, and the dull little village, and the routine of housework, and economy; Sunday school, choir practice, parish duties, old people, the long dark winters, and the cold, and the rain, and the solitude. It chilled her spirit, and filled her with a sickening dread. Yet how could she bring herself to promise "to behave with decency," when, in her own opinion, she had done nothing reprehensible? Her "friendship" with Mr. Kennard was blameless on both sides. It might be true that he did not bear the best of characters; Mrs. Greaves had warned her, most officiously, of that, and had cited one or two so-called scandals in which he had been concerned, to all appearances, discreditably. But had he not told her himself, repeatedly, that it had all been the fault of the women, which she could quite believe, and that her influence on his life was the one good thing that had ever come his way? Had he not declared that for her sweet sake there should be no more "stories," that because of her he would be strong? Surely that was something to be proud of! Therefore, how could she turn and treat him as though he were a blackguard, and deny him the first incentive he had ever known to rectitude of life? Why, every Sunday lately he had gone to church at her behest, and he said he had given up gambling at the club, assured her that every night he read a chapter of the Bible she had lent him--a worn little volume that had been hers since childhood, with notes in the margins, and flowers pressed between the pages to mark the anniversaries of her life's rare events--her mother's death, her confirmation, her first communion, and her marriage. "Well?" Her husband's voice cut sharply through her thoughts. Now she gazed at him with large, distressed blue eyes. "Oh, George, do try to understand! There is really nothing wrong. We are only friends, and he _needs_ my friendship; it helps him, it does him good." Rage and disgust almost choked him. "Bah!" he exclaimed furiously, "don't talk rot like that to me." He took a step forward, and seized her wrist. "Can you swear to me that the beast has never attempted to make love to you? Can you deny that he follows you about, and writes you notes, and gives you presents, and that you have never tried to stop him? The fellow is notorious, and only a man who was a fool or a blackguard would stand by and see his wife go to the devil with him or with anyone else." She trembled, terrified, and her face became distorted with tears. "You are cruel and unjust," she sobbed. "I will not bear it." He dropped her arm, and paced backwards and forwards among the furniture. Then he stopped by the table and picked up a book--the daintily bound little volume that had come for Rafella this morning. He looked at it with contempt.