upon her freedom. And would it not always be the same? Supposing
Mr Milvain were to come to this house, would it not repel him
when he found what sort of person Marian's mother was?

She shed a few tears over her needlework.

At midnight the study door opened. Yule came to the dining-room
to see that all was right, and it surprised him to find his wife
still sitting there.

'Why are you so late?'

'I've forgot the time.'

'Forgotten, forgotten. Don't go back to that kind of language
again. Come, put the light out.'



PART TWO

CHAPTER VIII. TO THE WINNING SIDE

Of the acquaintances Yule had retained from his earlier years
several were in the well-defined category of men with
unpresentable wives. There was Hinks, for instance, whom, though
in anger he spoke of him as a bore, Alfred held in some genuine
regard. Hinks made perhaps a hundred a year out of a kind of
writing which only certain publishers can get rid of and of this
income he spent about a third on books. His wife was the daughter