She never tried again, for fear the man should go out of his mind on
the spot. He depended on her. She seemed the only sensible person in
the town; and he would congratulate himself frankly before her face
on having secured such a levelheaded wife for his son. The rest of the
town, he confided to her once, in a fit of temper, was certainly queer.
The way they looked at you--the way they talked to you! He had never got
on with any one in the place. Didn't like the people. He would not have
left his own country if it had not been clear that his son had taken a
fancy to Colebrook.

She humoured him in silence, listening patiently by the fence;
crocheting with downcast eyes. Blushes came with difficulty on her
dead-white complexion, under the negligently twisted opulence of
mahogany-coloured hair. Her father was frankly carroty.

She had a full figure; a tired, unrefreshed face. When Captain Hagberd
vaunted the necessity and propriety of a home and the delights of one's
own fireside, she smiled a little, with her lips only. Her home delights
had been confined to the nursing of her father during the ten best years
of her life.

A bestial roaring coming out of an upstairs window would interrupt their
talk. She would begin at once to roll up her crochet-work or fold her
sewing, without the slightest sign of haste. Meanwhile the howls and
roars of her name would go on, making the fishermen strolling upon the
sea-wall on the other side of the road turn their heads towards the
cottages. She would go in slowly at the front door, and a moment
afterwards there would fall a profound silence. Presently she would
reappear, leading by the hand a man, gross and unwieldy like a
hippopotamus, with a bad-tempered, surly face.