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But Hester put her arm across the door. ‘No; you can’t go now,’ she said. She was pale and trembling. Her eyes were wide and sick. ‘You can’t go now,’ she repeated. ‘I’ve something to say first, too.—Yes, Clive.—She is the best friend you will ever have. No one will ever do for you what she does—or love you as much. But I’m not going to be given back to you by her. I’m not going to have you accept from her what you won’t from me.—It’s not only Godfrey.—It’s deeper than that—the reason for our parting. I’m not the sort of woman you ought to have fallen in love with. Monica saw the truth from the beginning I came into your life and I broke it.’

‘It’s not the truth,’ said Clive. He had raised his head. He held his mother’s hand, but he faced his wife with his own strength. ‘You mended my life. You are my life; and if you leave me now it will be from pride—not from love, as you think.—It will be because you won’t share me with my mother;—as I felt I couldn’t share you with the other man you love. Well; I can. And if it’s because of Mummy, you must put up with it; just as she has to put up with the fact that it’s you who are my life; not she.’

‘All right,’ Hester muttered, and, darkly flushed,