“All young men bet, Horace; you must know that!”
The Squire at the foot of the bed held up the candle; the movement had a sinister significance.
“Do you defend him?” it seemed to say. “Do you defy me?”
Gripping the bed-rail, he cried:
“I'll have no gambler and profligate for my son! I'll not risk the estate!”
Mrs. Pendyce raised herself, and for many seconds stared at her husband. Her heart beat furiously. It had come! What she had been expecting all these days had come! Her pale lips answered:
“What do you mean? I don't understand you, Horace.”
Mr. Pendyce's eyes searched here and there for what, he did not know.
“This has decided me,” he said. “I'll have no half-measures. Until he can show me he's done with that woman, until he can prove he's given up this betting, until—until the heaven's fallen, I'll have no more to do with him!”
To Margery Pendyce, with all her senses quivering, that saying, “Until the heaven's fallen,” was frightening beyond the rest. On the lips of her husband, those lips which had never spoken in metaphors, never swerved from the direct and commonplace, nor deserted the shibboleth of his order, such words had an evil and malignant sound.