63

Thank God—he was thinking of Jean now, not of Emily—he had played fair in the great game of life. Tempted? Of course he had been tempted. Once, at least, more fiercely than he cared to remember now. But he had fought, beaten down temptation, remaining not only in deed but even in word, faithful to his marriage vow.

He came back with something of a mental start to the matter in hand.

This was the first time he had ever spoken, in an intimate sense, of his married life to any human being, and he was surprised to feel that, instead of finding it difficult, it was, in a sort of way, a relief.

“People may have told you, Mr. Kentworthy, that my wife was not a good-tempered woman,” he said earnestly, “but all I can say is, she was the most devoted and generous-natured of wives to me. I am aware that among my neighbours I was criticized for being a good deal away from home. No doubt I was selfish, absorbed in the game to which I give so much of my life during the summer months, but it was always with her eager encouragement that I went about and lived the kind of life I did live.”

“Mrs. Garlett must have been a most exceptional woman,” said the other, and he spoke with no sarcastic intent.

“She came of a long line of high-minded, God-fearing people—her old father was proud of the fact that he was descended from a man who at one moment had been Cromwell’s right hand.”

He, Harry Garlett, hadn’t thought of that for years. Yet, what was perhaps more singular, poor Emily’s personality, at once so commonplace and yet, in a sense, forceful, became suddenly more present to him than it had ever been since the last time they had talked together, on the evening of their thirteenth wedding-day.

“I may take it that there was never even a passing cloud on your married life?”

“Never a cloud!”

Harry Garlett added impulsively, “I don’t want you to 64think me a better man than I am. I did not always find it an easy situation——”

64

The other cut him short: “I accept what you said just now—that you two were happier, if anything, than the average married couple?”

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