If I had dreamt there was any flirtation
between you, I should have taken care to put a stop to _that_. Well, go on.
You found Fairfax there, and you let him detain you, and then----?"
"My husband came, and there was a dreadful scene, and he knocked Mr.
Fairfax down."
"Naturally. I respect him for doing it."
"And for a few minutes I thought he was dead," said Clarissa with a
shudder; and then she went on with her story, telling her brother how
Daniel Granger had threatened to separate her from her child.
"That was hard lines," said Austin; "but I think you would have done better
to remain passive. It's natural that he should take this business rather
seriously at first: but that would wear off in a short time. What you have
done will only widen the breach."
"I have got my child," said Clarissa.
"Yes; but in any case you must have had him. That threat of Granger's was
only blank cartridge. He could not deprive you of the custody of your son."
"He will try to get a divorce, perhaps. He thinks me the vilest creature in
the world."
"A divorce--bosh! Divorces are not obtained so easily. What a child you
are, Clarissa!"
"At any rate, he was going to take me back to papa in disgrace. I could not
have endured that. My father would think me guilty, perhaps."
Again the tell-tale crimson flushed Clarissa's face. The memory of that
September evening at Mill Cottage flashed across her mind, and her father's
denunciation of George Fairfax and his race.
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