He was walking up and down again, but that question about the preacher's wife sobered him a little; and presently he sat down, playing with her locket in one hand and shading his face with the other.
"And yet I don't know," he said. "She may have known—God knows—no! I think it is the devil knows—what may happen when a woman is bound to such a saint. In any case it's not her fault."
"But she will suffer if he's hanged," said Mrs. Sauls; and George looked up.
"Yes; she will," he said. "That's not my affair. The fool always suffers with the knave, and the innocent with the guilty. I didn't make that excellent universal law. But I am not so moonstruck as to let a rogue off for the sake of a woman who won't touch me with a pair of tongs. Why, mother, what do you take me for? What do you want? I've never known you so unreasonable. Why shouldn't I bring a man to justice who has tried to kill me? Who am I to upset heaven's decrees? Do you want me to compound a felony? I believe you do! I am ashamed of you, old lady!"
"I am a foolish old woman, my boy," said Mrs. Sauls. "Perhaps it's because I am getting feeble and old now, that I can't bear to hear you talk so."
And George suddenly dropped the savagely bantering tone, and sat down on the sofa beside her, and pulled her closer to him. "Nonsense! 'old and feeble!'" he said. "There's not much feebleness about you, mother. I say, you make me feel on a par with my uncle! My foot itches to kick him when I hear him bullying Aunt Lydia. Have I been bullying you?"
"No, my dear. You are quite the best son in all the world, and not in the least like your uncle," said Mrs. Sauls. "Besides, you wouldn't find me so easy to bully as your Aunt Lyddy, though I remember——"
She did not say what she remembered; but George knew well enough.
They both remembered some scenes that had probably helped to make George the man he was, both for good and evil. Isaac Cohen had been a brutal husband, and a tyrannical father, till the day when George discovered that he was big enough to defend himself, and strong enough to prevent his mother from being ill-treated—at any rate, in his presence.
"Don't remember!" said Isaac's son. "My father is best forgotten. I hope I don't remind you of him. If I do, I certainly ought to be heartily ashamed of myself."