Their memory of her was far harder—naturally, perhaps. She was a raider, a brigand, a sadly disturbing and destructive invader. At last she had been driven out, but a track of desolation spread behind her retreating steps. Indeed there were spots where the herbage never grew again. The old folk forgave their son and lived to be proud of him once more. But Amy Ledstone had gauged her brother with an accuracy destructive of love; and within twelve months Mabel Thurseley married a stockbroker, an excellent fellow with a growing business. She never knew it, but she, at least, had cause for gratitude to Winnie Maxon.
Godfrey returned to the obedience of the code. He was at home there. It was an air that he could breathe. The air of Shaylor's Patch was not—nor that of the Kensington studio.
CHAPTER XVIII
NOTHING SERIOUS
"By the law came sin——" quoted Stephen Aikenhead.
"He only meant the Jewish law. Man, ye're hopeless." Dennehy tousled his hair.
The February afternoon was mild; Stephen was a fanatic about open air, if about nothing else. The four sat on the lawn at Shaylor's Patch, well wrapped up—Stephen, Tora, and Dennehy in rough country wraps, Winnie in a stately sealskin coat, the gift of Mrs. Lenoir. She had taken to dressing Winnie, in spite of half-hearted remonstrances and with notable results.
"But the deuce is," Stephen continued—this time on his own account and, therefore, less authoritatively—"that when you take away the law, the sin doesn't go too."
Winnie's story was by now known to these three good friends. Already it was being discussed more as a problem than as a tragedy. Some excuse might be found in Winnie's air and manner. She was in fine looks and good spirits, interested and alert, distinctly resilient against the blows of fortune and the miscarriage of theoretical experiments. So much time and change had done for her.