The woman shuddered, and looked at him wildly.
“Mr Lisle! Don’t talk like that!”
“Why not?”
“No one worth notice could think such a thing of you.”
“Not even your mistress!” he said, with boyish irritability; but only to feel as if he would have given all he possessed to recall it.
“Don’t say cruel things about her, sir. She has suffered deeply.”
“Yes, but—”
He checked himself, and though Sarah Woodham remained silent and waiting, he did not speak.
“What changes and troubles we have seen, sir, since the happy old days when, quite a boy then, you used to come to the quarry with Miss Claude.”
“Bah! You never seemed to be very happy, Sarah. You were much brighter and happier before you were married.”