'Because my teeth are gone. I have at least some that are not my own. Miss Jesse would have shaken them into my mouth on to my tongue—had I not spoken. That, you see, would have been humiliating.'
'Father, you said something of being ill.'
'Yes, I am ill, but not very. That is to say I am threatened, but do not suffer seriously at present. I do not like to think about it, still less to speak of it—but to you it is another matter. You must know about it. When I came here I had some hopes. But the doctors afford me none. Let the subject drop. I have enough of that when alone, and at night. Then it haunts me and will not let me rest. During the day, and with company, I shake it off. I like crumpets. When I hear the crumpets crackle it carries me back to the time when I ate Abernethies and had no false teeth.'
'Tell me about your marriage with my mother,' said Winefred, desirous of drawing him from crumpets and Abernethies to matters of more enduring interest. 'Father, how was it that she did not take your name?'
'Well, well, my dear, the story is painful, but it must come out now. The facts were these. We were married privately by a rogue of a parson at St. Pancras Church at Rousdon. It is ruinous, but it had a rector, who lived in Lyme, and did no duty, as there were no parishioners. I do not think he was unfrocked. It would have been hardly worth the bishop's while to do that, you see, as he did no duty, and there was no roof on the church. For my sake, and at my request, the marriage was kept secret. When young, your mother was a beautiful woman; you remind me of her greatly. In fact you get your good looks from her.'
'But, father, why were you——'
'I know what you would say. Why were we separated? You see the marriage was not known, and I was given a place in the Foreign Office, and as every one supposed that I was calculated by character and capacities to get advancement in it I began to see that my marriage presented serious difficulties.'
He began to fumble with the teaspoon at his tongue, and spoke accordingly indistinctly.
'I mean this—that I feared it might prevent my preferment, and then again it would alienate all my family from me. I had an aunt who was wealthy, and she doted on me; but she was ambitious, and would not have forgiven me. So I got your mother to keep our marriage dark, and then—then——'