"Yes, yes, dear."
"But they wouldn't hear of it. My mother was very angry, even in her grief, when I proposed it. They hope that by strict retrenchment, the property will be itself again; and they spoke about Tommy. They said it would be unjust to him——"
"And to you," quickly. She would not have him ignored any longer.
"Oh, as for me, I'm not a boy, you know. Tommy is safe to inherit as life goes."
"Well, so are you," said she, with a sharp pang at her heart.
"Yes, of course. I am only making out a case. I think it was kind of them to remember Tommy's claim in the midst of their own grief."
"It was, indeed," says she remorsefully. "Oh, it was. But if they give up everything where will they go?"
"They talk of taking a cottage—a small house somewhere. They want to give up everything to pay his infamous——There!" sharply, "I am forgetting again! But to see them makes one forget everything else." He begins his walk up and down the room again, as if inaction is impossible to him. "My mother, who has been accustomed to a certain luxury all her life, to be now, at the very close of it, condemned to——It would break your heart to see her. And she will let nothing be said of him."
"Oh, no."
"Still, there should be justice. I can't help feeling that. Her blameless life, and his——and she is the one to suffer."