Mary sped on with the words that now were rushing in her thoughts.
"Well--all that means such a lot to me. That's how I want to make my child, as you make your lives here. No cheating. You can't cheat Nature. No pretence--no shame. There's nothing so flagrant or unashamed as Nature when she brings forth. Out there in the world, there where I live, they'd do all they could to make me ashamed. At every turn they'd shriek at me it was a sin. The laws would urge them to it, just as for that one moment they urged you. It's not a sin. It's not a shame. It's the most wonderful thing in the world. Do you think if women had the making of the laws that rule them, they'd ever have made of it the shame it is out there? When I knew that this was going to happen to me, I remembered my impressions of this place two years ago, and I knew it was here I would make him, month by month, while he's leaning in me to make him. Oh--I know I must be talking strangely to you; that half of what I say sounds feather-brained nonsense, but--don't you know it's true, don't you feel it's true?"
With an impulsive gesture when words had failed, she leant forward and caught the knotted knuckles in her hand.
Mrs. Peverell glanced up.
"In that room there," said she, pointing in the direction of the parlor sitting room, "there's a girt Bible lies heavy on a mat. We bought it marriage time to write the names of those we had."
"I saw it," said Mary.
"'Tis clean paper lies on front of it," she went on. "It shan't be clean for long. We'll write his name there."
VIII
The moment Mary entered the square, white house on her return to Bridnorth, she was aware that both Jane and Fanny knew. The coach had set her down outside the Royal George, but no faces had been at the windows as she went by. No servant had been sent up the road to carry back her bag. Outwardly she smiled. Her disgrace had begun.
This was the end of Bridnorth life for her. Here was to begin a new phase wherein she had none but herself to lean upon; wherein the whole world was against her and in that substance of stone already hardening in her spirit, she must stand alone.