"Not from her point of view, Aunt Jenny."

"And what other point of view, in keeping with honour and religion, exists?"

"As to religion, I'm without it and so much the freer. I don't want to pretend anything I don't feel. I shall always be very sorry, indeed, for what I did; but I'm not going to wreck my life by marrying Sabina."

"What about her life?"

"If she will trust her life to me, I shall do all in my power to make it a happy and easy life. I want the child to be a success. I know it will grow up a reproach to me and all that sort of thing in the opinion of many people; but that won't trouble me half as much as my own regrets.

I've not done anything that puts me beyond the, pale of humanity--nor has Sabina; and if she can keep her nerve and go on with her life, it ought to be all right for her, presently."

"A very cynical att.i.tude and I wish I could change it, Raymond. You've lost your self-respect and you know you've done a wrong thing. Can't you see that you'll always suffer it if you take no steps to right it? You are a man of feeling, and power can't lessen your feeling. Every time you see that child, you will know that you have brought a living soul into the world cruelly handicapped by your deliberate will."

"That's not a fair argument," he answered. "If our rotten laws handicap the baby, it will be my object to nullify the handicap to the best of my ability. The laws won't come between me and my child, any more than they came between me and my pa.s.sion. I'm not the sort to hide behind the mean English law of the natural child. But I'm not going to let that law bully me into marriage with Sabina. I've got to think of myself as well as other people. I won't say, what's true--that if Sabina married me she wouldn't be happy in the long run; but I will say that I know I shouldn't be, and I'm not prepared to pay any penalty whatever for what I did, beyond the penalty of my own regrets."

"If you rule religion out and think you can escape and keep your honour, I don't know what to say," she answered. "For my part I believe Sabina would make you a very good and loving wife. And don't fancy, if you refuse her what faithfully you promised her, she will be content with less."

"That's her look out. You won't be wise, Aunt Jenny, to influence her against a fair and generous offer. I want her to live a good life, and I don't want our past love-making to ruin that life, or our child to ruin that life. If she's going to pose as a martyr, I can't help it. That's the side of her that wrecked the show, as a matter of fact, and made it very clear to me that we shouldn't be a happy married couple."

"Self-preservation is a law of nature. She only did what any girl would have done in trying to find friends to save her from threatened disaster."

"Well, I dare say it was natural to her to take that line, and it was equally natural to me to resent it. At any rate we know where we stand now. Tell me if there's anything else."

"I only warn you that she will accept no benefits of any kind from you, Raymond. And who shall blame her?"

"That's entirely her affair, of course. I can't do more than admit my responsibilities and declare my interest in her future."

"She will throw your interest back in your face and teach her child to despise you, as she does."

"How d'you know that, Aunt Jenny?"

"Because she's a proud woman. And because she would lose the friendship of all proud women and clean thinking men if she condoned what you intend to do. It's horrible to see you turned from a simple, stupid, but honourable boy, into a hard, selfish, irreligious man--and all the result of being rich. I should never have thought it could have made such a dreadful difference so quickly. But I have not changed, Raymond.

And I tell you this: if you don't marry Sabina; if you don't see that only so can you hold up your head as an honest man and a respectable member of society, worthy of your cla.s.s and your family, then, I, for one, can have no more to do with you. I mean it."

"I'm sorry you say that. You've been my guardian angel in a way and I've a million things to thank you for from my childhood. It would be a great grief to me, Aunt Jenny, if you allowed a difference of opinion to make you take such a line. I hope you'll think differently."

"I shall not," she said. "I have not told you this on the spur of the moment, or before I had thought it out very fully and very painfully.

But if you do this outrageous thing, I will never be your aunt any more, Raymond, and never wish to see you again as long as I live. You know me; I'm not hysterical, or silly, or even sentimental; but I'm jealous for your father's name--and your brother's. You know where duty and honour and solemn obligation point. There is no reason whatever why you should shirk your duty, or sully your honour; but if you do, I decline to have any further dealings with you."

He rose to go.

"That's definite and clear. Good-bye, Aunt Jenny."

"Good-bye," she said. "And may G.o.d guide you to recall that 'good-bye,'

nephew."

Then he went back to 'The Seven Stars,' and wondered as he walked, how the new outlook had shrunk up this old woman too, and made one, who bulked so largely in his life of old, now appear as of no account whatever. He was heartily sorry she should have taken so unreasonable a course; but he grieved more for her sake than his own. She was growing old. She would lack his company in the time to come, and her heart was too warm to endure this alienation without much pain.

He suspected that if Sabina's future course of action satisfied Miss Ironsyde, she would be friendly to her and the child and, in time, possibly win some pleasure from them.

CHAPTER XXIX

THE BUNCH OF GRAPES

Raymond proceeded with his business at Bridetown oblivious of persons and personalities. He puzzled those who were prepared to be his enemies, for it seemed he was becoming as impersonal as the spinning machines, and one cannot quarrel with a machine.

It appeared that he was to be numbered with those who begin badly and retrieve the situation afterwards. So, at least, hoped Ernest Churchouse, yet, since the old man was called to witness and endure a part of the sorrows of Sabina and her mother, it demanded large faith on his part to antic.i.p.ate brighter times. He clung to it that Raymond would yet marry Sabina, and he regretted that when the young man actually offered to see Sabina, she refused to see him. For this happened. He came to stop at North Hill House for two months, while certain experts were inspecting the works, and during this time he wished to visit 'The Magnolias' and talk with Sabina, but she declined.

The very active hate that he had awakened sank gradually to smouldering fires of bitter resentment and contempt. She spoke openly of destroying their babe when it should be born.

Then the event happened and Sabina became the mother of a man child.

Raymond was still with Arthur Waldron when Estelle brought the news, and the men discussed it.

"I hope she'll be reasonable now," said Ironsyde. "It bothered me when she refused to see me, because you can't oppose reason to stupidity of that sort. If she's going to take my aunt's line, of course, I'm done, and shall be powerless to help her. I spoke to Uncle Ernest about it two days ago. He says that it will have to be marriage, or nothing, and seemed to think that would move me to marriage! Some people can't understand plain English. But why should she cut off her nose to spite her face and refuse my friendship and help because I won't marry her?"

"She's that sort, I suppose. Of course, plenty of women would do the same."

"I'm not convinced it's Sabina really who is doing this. That's why I wanted to see her. Very likely Aunt Jenny is inspiring such a silly att.i.tude, or her mother. They may think if she's firm I may yield. They don't seem to realise that love's as dead as a doornail now. But my duty is clear enough and they can't prevent me from doing it, I imagine."

"You want to be sporting to the child, of course."

"And to the mother of the child. d.a.m.n it all, I'm made of flesh and blood. I'm not a fiend. But with women, if you have a grain of common-sense and reasoning power, you become a fiend the moment there's a row. I want Sabina and my child to have a good show in the world, Arthur."

"Well, you must let her know it."

"I'll see her, presently. I'll take no denial about that. It may be a pious plot really, for religious people don't care how they intrigue, if they can bring off what they want to happen. It was very strange she refused to see me. Perhaps they never told her that I offered to come."

"Yes, they did, because Estelle heard Churchouse tell her. Estelle was with her at the time, and she said she was so sorry when Sabina refused.

It may have been because she was ill, of course."

"I must see her before I go away, anyway. If they've been poisoning her mind against me, I must put it right."

"You're a rum 'un! Can't you see what this means to her? You talk as if she'd no grievance, and as though it was all a matter of course and an everyday thing."

"So it is, for that matter. However, there's no reason for you to bother about it. I quite recognise what it is to be a father, and the obligations. But because I happen to be a father, is no reason why I should be asked to do impossibilities. Because you've made a fool of yourself once is no reason why you should again. By good chance I've had unexpected luck in life and things have fallen out amazingly well--and I'm very willing indeed that other people should share my good luck and good fortune. I mean that they shall. But I'm not going to negative my good fortune by doing an imbecile thing."

"As long as you're sporting I've got no quarrel with you," declared Waldron. "I'm not very clever myself, but I can see that if they won't let you do what you want to do, it's not your fault. If they refuse to let you play the game--but, of course, you must grant the game looks different from their point of view. No doubt they think you're not playing the game. A woman's naturally not such a sporting animal as a man, and what we think is straight, she often doesn't appreciate, and what she thinks is straight we often know is crooked. Women, in fact, are more like the other nations which, with all their excellent qualities, don't know what 'sporting' means."

"I mean to do right," answered Raymond, "and probably I'm strong enough to make them see it and wear them down, presently. I'm really only concerned about Sabina and her child. The rest, and what they think and what they don't think, matter nothing. She may listen to reason when she's well again."

Two days later Raymond received a box from London and showed Estelle an amazing bunch of Muscat grapes, destined for Sabina.

"She always liked grapes," he said, "and these are as good as any in the world at this moment."

On his way to the Mill he left the grapes at 'The Magnolias,' and spoke a moment with Mr. Churchouse.