celebrate 'Melia Kybird's wedding, and she came over and sat in that
chair and cried as if 'er 'art would break. After she'd gone Teddy comes
over, fierce as a eagle, and wants to know wot I've been saying to 'is
mother to make 'er cry. Between the two of 'em I 'ave a nice life of
it."

"He is still faithful to Miss Kybird, then?" said Hardy, with a sudden
sense of relief.

"Faithful?" said Mr. Wilks. "Faithful ain't no word for it. He's a
sticker, that's wot 'e is, and it's my misfortune that 'is mother takes
after 'im. I 'ave to go out afore breakfast and stay out till late at
night, and even then like as not she catches me on the doorstep."

"Well, perhaps she will make a hole in the water," suggested Hardy.

Mr. Wilks smiled, but almost instantly became grave again. "She's not
that sort," he said, bitterly, and went into the kitchen to draw some
beer.

He drank his in a manner which betokened that the occupation afforded him
no enjoyment, and, full of his own troubles, was in no mood to discuss
anything else. He gave a short biography of Mrs. Silk which would have
furnished abundant material for half-a-dozen libel actions, and alluding
to the demise of the late Mr. Silk, spoke of it as though it were the
supreme act of artfulness in a somewhat adventurous career.

Hardy walked home with a mind more at ease than it had been at any time
since his overtures to Mr. Swann. The only scruple that had troubled him
was now removed, and in place of it he felt that he was acting the part