"Never, Griff; but, then, you have never been in love before."
"With my mother—always. I swear to you that we are innocent."
"Thank God for that, dear! I am behind the times in such things. It would have killed me, Griff, to think that you could stoop——"
"Hush, mother! Kate is above it, whatever I may be."
A long silence, broken by the patter of sleet against the window.
"You might have married well, Griff."
"Mother, that is not like you. Leave distinctions of that kind to people who cannot claim five hundred years of moor life."
The old lady rose abruptly and went to the window. Blurred eyes saw through blurred panes some gallant hopes she had entertained on her son's behalf—saw the wife she had planned for him; saw jealousy, too, the fierce resentment of a mother who is robbed of her young; saw, finally, the way that meant happiness for Griff.
"You are right, dear," she said, turning and taking his hands in her own lean, weather-stained palms. "If you will always follow your heart, I don't think it will take you far wrong."
The divorce suit was the talk of the artistic sets in London that winter. Griff's society friends chattered about it; the little people who had fumed at his success laughed stridently at his fall.