I didn’t think there was that much of the loving nature about her. She used to vex me by being hard and uncertain when we were courting. I knew then she cared about me, and I hadn’t a thought about any other woman. Now when I didn’t ask her to bother herself about me, and only to let me alone and go her own way, she must turn the tables on me, and want to ruin the pair of us slap over again.

She’d thrown her arms round my neck and was sobbing on my shoulder when she finished. I took her over to the sofa, and made her sit down by the side of me.

“Kate,” I said, “this won’t do. There’s neither rhyme nor reason about it. I’m as fond of you as ever I was, but you must know well enough if you make a bolt of it now there’ll be no end of a bobbery, and everybody’s thoughts will be turned our way. We’ll be clean bowled—the lot of us. Jim and I will be jugged. You and Jeanie will be left to the mercy of the world, worse off by a precious sight than ever you were in your lives. Now, if you look at it, what’s the good of spoiling the whole jimbang for a fancy notion about me? You and I are safe to be first-rate friends always, but it will be the ruin of both of us if we’re fools enough to want to be more. You’re living here like a regular queen. You’ve got a good husband, that’s proud of you and gives you everything you can think of. You took him yourself, and you’re bound to stick to him. Besides, think of poor Jeanie and Jim. You’ll spoil all their happiness; and, more than all—don’t make any mistake—you know what Jeanie thinks of a woman who leaves her husband for another man.”

If you let a woman have a regular good cry and talk herself out, you can mostly bring her round in the end. So after a bit Kate grew more reasonable. That bit about Jeanie fetched her, too. She knew her own sister would turn against her—not harsh like, but she’d never be the same to her again as long as she lived.

The lamp had been put out in the big hall. There was only one in this parlour, and it wasn’t over bright. I talked away, and last of all she came round to my way of thinking; at any rate not to want to clear off from the old man now, but to wait till I came back, or till I wrote to her.