Mr. Ashley walked on without comment. William resumed.
"Had that unhappy affair not taken place, Henry's intention was to make her his wife, provided you could have been brought to consent to it. His whole days used to be spent, I believe, in planning how he could best invent a chance of obtaining it."
"And now?" very sharply asked Mr. Ashley.
"Now the thing is at an end for ever. Henry's good sense has come to his aid; I suppose I may say his pride; his self-esteem. Innocent of actual ill as Anna was in the affair, there was sufficient reflection cast upon her to prove to Henry that his hopeful visions could never be carried out. That was Henry's secret, sir: and I almost feared the blow would have killed him. But he is getting over it."
Mr. Ashley drew a deep breath. "William, I thank you. You have relieved me from a nightmare: and you may forget having given me the confidence if you like, for it will never be abused. What are you going to do about space?" he continued, in a different tone.
"About space, sir?"
"For those protégés of yours, at East's. They seem to me to be tolerably confined for it, there?"
"Yes, and that is not the worst," said William. "Men are asking to join every day, and they cannot be taken in."
"I can't think how you manage to get so many—and to keep them."
"I suppose the chief secret is, that their interest enters into it. We contrive to keep that up. Most of them would not go back to the Horned Ram for the world."