And then Brion spoke, in his quiet level way, in which, however, he could be pretty poisonous when he chose. He began by putting the lady right on certain points. Seduction, he said, was always a jealous term in the mouths of those whose unwomanliness had never had reason to fear it, and whose spite, it seemed, could go so far as to apply it to the very Sacrament of Wedlock. And as to children of shame, said he, the shame was in those who made and kept them so, and the truer justice in his opinion would be to disinherit the father who begot a child unlawfully, and endow with his forfeited name that innocent victim of his wrong-doing. ‘’Tis ever,’ he went on, ‘old loveless virginity that most hates the child of love; but to do it in the name of religion is a beastly Pharisaism. Go on thy knees to Heaven, old woman, and pray it forgive thee for thy harsh and narrow persecution of one entrusted by it to thee as an instrument of atonement for a wickedness perpetrated. Remember, ’twas Fortune, not thine own virtue, gave thee a name, else had thou stood a sorry chance of any. And now I have but this to say. I shake, on my Joan’s behalf, the dust of this cruel bondage from my feet. She leaves it joyously for one pledged long years ago, and now confirmed by Heaven’s sanction. And with that I end.’ He did, and gained the street unhurried, leaving behind him a picture of such baffled and speechless venom as, when he came to recall it, made him shake with laughter. For, the business once accomplished, he had no mind to let its memory disturb him, but recaptured at once all that mood of exultant rapture to which it had been but a brief disagreeable interlude. It had left him all he sought and desired, absolute independent possession of the sweetest wife in the world. Only one thing remained to cloud his thoughts with some shadowy disquiet--that triumphant allusion to disturbances threatening across the moors. Was it true, and could it be possible they had the Grange for their objective? Remembering his own uneasiness before he left, and the precautions he had taken, he could not but feel a certain inquietude. At the same time he trusted to Raleigh’s promise to nip any such demonstrations, should they occur, in the bud. But he felt it necessary to the setting of his mind at rest to go at once. He and Joan must bid good-bye to Plymouth on the morrow. And so, having resolved, he abandoned himself to the happiness of the moment. It seemed too stupendously incredible that after all these weary years of separation he and Joan were found, rejoined and wedded, and all in one day. Yes, wedded--the mad, preposterous thing! He chuckled in mere helpless ecstasy to think of it. CHAPTER XXXI. ‘BACK TO A WORLD OF DEATH’