"I will tell you this much now," he said. "I had rather that we Strangeweys died out, that the roof dropped off Peak Hall and the walls stood naked to the sky, than that this woman should be your wife and the mother of your children!"
"Let it go at that, then, Stephen," John replied. "It is enough for me to say that I will not take it ill from you, because you do not know her."
"But I do know her," Stephen answered. "Perhaps she didn't tell you that I paid her a visit?"
"You paid her a visit?"
"Aye, that I did! She wouldn't tell you. There'll be many a thing in life she won't tell you. I went to let her hear from my lips what I thought of her as a wife for you. I told her what I thought of a woman who plays the part of a wanton—"
"Stephen!" John thundered.
"The part of an adulterous wife upon the stage for every man and woman who pay their silver to go and gape at! It seems I did no good—no good, that is, if she has promised to marry you."
John drew a breath. His task was harder, even, than he had imagined. All the time he tried to keep one thought fixed in his mind. Stephen was his elder brother. It was Stephen who had been his guardian and his guide through all his youth. He thought of Stephen's fifty odd years of simple and strenuous living, of his charity, of his strength—that very strength which had kept him in the narrow way, which had kept him from looking to the right or to the left in his walk through life.
"Stephen," John said, "you are growing harder with the years. Was there never a time, when you were younger, when you were my age, when you felt differently toward women?"
"Never, thank Heaven!" Stephen replied. "I was too near the sorrow that fell upon our house when our father died with a broken heart. There were the other two as well—one with a bullet in his brain, the other a drunkard. Maybe, when I was your age, I felt at times what I suppose you feel. Well, I just took it in both hands and strangled it. If you must have a sweetheart, why don't you take the little fair-haired girl—Sophy, you called her? She'd do you as little harm as any of them."