"If I were a fool, it might. I know she holds the tie lightly. Any conventional sort of bondage angers her. I won her by a trick—not of my hatching, God knows—yet none the less a trick."
"You'd make Job lose his patience—you, that I thought a man of ideas as fresh and wholesome as the west wind! Can't you see this cuts both ways? She's yours till death parts you, so have done whining. You're stirring hell-broth, that's what you're doing, and if you let Honor catch a sight of the brew, there will be some real, live trouble very likely. You, to break out like this! Well, it shows how true the saying runs: that every man, from Solomon down, is mad when the wind sets in one quarter. Now you've found your foul-weather wind, and it's like to blow you into some play-acting if you don't pull yourself up. You're the luckiest man on the whole countryside, if you could only see it so. Be patient, and put your faith in your wife, where it should be, and go your old gait again."
"I'll try your remedy—ignore the thing, banish it, laugh at it."
"Laugh at yourself; if you could only learn to do that, there'd be hope for you. And take another point to your comfort. We're all agreed that Yeoland's no hypocrite, whatever else he may be. Three days since I had speech with him, and your name was on his lips, and he rejoiced that you were his friend and Honor's husband. He does not dream that his return to life has either gladdened her or troubled you. He only sees her now pretty much as she was when he went away. He hasn't seen what you and I have—her sorrows. But, remember that Honor's real happiness rests with you—nobody else—and she knows it, and trusts to you for it. Nobody can ever take your place, and if she glimpses a serious change in you, she'll soon be down in the mouth, and, as like as not, a lie-abed again."
"She has seen a change. She has asked me what was amiss."
"Then stir yourself, and make a giant's effort before she finds out more than you want her to know. I'm glad I spoke to you to-night—wish I had sooner; but it's not too late. You've had tangles to untie in your character before to-day—puzzles to pick—dirty corners to let the light in upon. Who hasn't? And you're not the one to fear such work, I should reckon. So set about it, and the Lord help you."
Myles Stapledon rose and took the old man's hand.
"Thank you," he said. "You've done me good, and I'll try to be worthy of your advice. I don't quite know what this place would be without you, Uncle Endicott."
"Quieter, my son—that's all. I'm only a voice. Words are poor things alongside actions. The great deeds of the world—the things achieved—are not chattered by the tongue, but rise out of sweat, and deep, long silences. Yet I've given you advice worth following, I do think, though, seeing that your blind spot looks like jealousy, what I've bid you do may be harder than you imagine. So much more credit if you do it."
Neither spoke again, and Stapledon, taking the candle, soon went to his bed; but Mark sat on awhile over his knitting in the dark, while the crickets chirruped fearlessly about the dim and dying peat.