"I like you. And—no—how could I hate your father and mother? They made me no promise; I've given nothing to them on the strength of a promise. But to him I've given everything I had; not much, I know, but still—everything."
Amy twisted her gloved hands round one another. She was calmer now, but her face was drawn with pain. "Yes, that's true," she said. Then she came out abruptly with what had been behind her spoken words for the last ten minutes, with what she had to say before she could bring herself to leave Winnie. "At any rate, you've pluck. Godfrey's a coward."
Winnie's lips bent in a queer smile. "Don't! Where does it leave me? Oh yes, it's true about him, I suppose. That's my blunder."
Amy walked back to the mantelpiece; she had left her muff on it. She took it up and moved towards the door. "I'll go. You must have had enough of the lot of us!"
Winnie had an honest desire to be just, nay, to be kind, to reciprocate a friendliness obviously extended towards her, and extended in spite of a rooted disapproval. But those limits of endurance had been reached again. She had, indeed, had enough of the Ledstones; not even her husband could have suffered more strongly from the feeling. She made an effort.
"Oh, you and I part friends," she called after her visitor's retreating figure. Without turning round, Amy shook her head dolefully, and so passed out. Her mission was accomplished.
Almost directly after Amy left, the servant, Dennehy's old Irish woman, came in with tea and buttered toast. She drew a chair up to the gas stove, and a little table.
"Make yerself comfortable, me dear," she said.
"Did he say anything to you, Mrs. O'Leary?"
"Said he was going to visit his relations in the North for a bit." Then, after a pause, "Cheer up, mum. There's as good fish——!" And out the old woman shuffled.