"And so is every one else," he told his grandmother; "and I feel shame for the first time in my life—shame to know I'm my father's son."
This attitude he openly confessed and it was not hidden from Bullstone.
In Barlow Huxam's presence Margery sometimes allowed herself to speak of her husband. He flinched on the first occasion; but suffered it afterwards, perceiving that she won some twilight satisfaction from analysing the reason for her misfortune.
The new house rose rapidly and his daughter often accompanied the postmaster to see progress on summer evenings, when the day's work had ended and the labourers were gone.
At such times she indicated to him a little of the chaos of her present days and their lack of everything that had made life worthy to be lived.
"I was often sorry for myself," she said on one occasion, while they had sat to rest on a pile of red tiles for the new roof. "Sorry I was; yet now looking back, father, I can see that, for all its frets, I was leading a woman's full, bustling, busy life. Often it was good work, and the need to be planning and looking forward kept me hearty and strong. And now—all gone, and me turned so weak that I'm no more use to anybody."
He bade her fasten upon the future.
"You did your duty in all things, and you need feel no remorse about one hour of your married life," he said. "That's ended for no fault of yours, but through the disaster of marrying a dangerous madman—to call him no worse. Such lunatic men have often cut the throats of their innocent wives; but he done otherwise, and if he'd cut his own, he might have escaped a good deal that lies before him; and so might you. You must steadfastly fix before your mind that he has wronged you in the awfulest way a man can wrong a good wife; and you must also feel that, but for the mercy of God, worse things might well have happened to you. Put him out of your thoughts. Banish him as you would the vision of sin, Margery."
"Easy to say and easy to do sometimes; but not always," she answered. "The difficulties that you and mother think are curing themselves have hardly begun for me; because time works both ways. It lessens your pain; but it throws a different light on the sources of your pain. Some women would never lose sight of the wrong and I haven't yet; but I'm weaker than a good many. You want to be strong, like mother, to hate for ever, and I ban't built to do it."
"You must seek strength from your mother then," he answered. "She's got strength for us all, and she hates evil unsleepingly, because her mind is built on faith and justice and she looks out of eyes that never grow dim."