“Colonel Piercey,” cried Margaret, “you have come among us at a dreadful moment, when all the secrets of the family are laid bare. Oh, don’t ask any more questions! I have said things I did not intend to say.”

“I hope that I am to be trusted,” he said, with his severe tone; “and if I can help, I will. To whom are you going? Is it to this old Hewitt? for nothing, I think, is to be learned from him.”

“I am going to Miss Hewitt, her aunt. It is in despair. For she has a hatred of all of us at Greyshott; but surely, surely, when they hear that his mother is dying – ”

“She cannot hate me. I will go,” Gerald Piercey said.

CHAPTER XX

Old Miss Hewitt sat in her parlour, if not like a fat spider watching for the fly, at least like a large cat seated demurely, with an eye upon her natural prey, though her aspect was more decorous and composed than words could tell. She had been made aware by her little servant a few minutes before that “a gentleman” was coming up to the door, and had instantaneously prepared to meet the visitor. A visitor was a very rare thing at Rose Cottage.

“You’re sure it ain’t the curate, a-coming begging?”

“Oh, no,” cried the little maid, “a tall, grand gentleman, like a lord. I think I knows a pa’son when I sees ’un!” she added, with rustic contempt. Miss Hewitt settled herself in her large chair; she gave her cap that twist that every woman who wears a cap supposes to put all aright. She drew to her a footstool for her feet, and then she said, “You may let him in, Jane.” A smile of delight was upon her mouth; but she subdued even that in her sense of propriety, to heighten the effect. She had been waiting for this moment for thirty years. She had not known how it would come about, but she had always felt it must come about somehow. She had paid fifty pounds for it – and she had not grudged her money – and now it had come. She did not even know the shape it would take, or who it was who was coming to place the family of Piercey at her feet, that she might spurn them; but that this was what was about to happen, she felt absolutely sure. It could not be Sir Giles himself, which would have been the sweetest of all, for Sir Giles was too infirm to visit anybody; while she, whom he had scorned once, was hale and strong, and sure to see both of them out! Perhaps it was a solicitor, or something of the kind. What did she care? It was some one from the Pierceys coming to her, abject, with a petition – which she would not grant – no, not if they besought her on their knees.

The room seemed in semi-darkness to Gerald, coming in from the brightness of the summer afternoon. The blind was drawn down to save the carpet, and the curtains hung heavily over the window for gentility’s sake. Miss Hewitt sat with her back to the light, by the side of the fireplace, which was filled up by cut paper. There was no air in the room; and though Colonel Piercey was not a man of humorous perceptions, there occurred even to him the idea of a large cat with her tail curled round her, sitting demure, yet fierce, on the watch for some prey, of which she had scent or sight.

“My name is Piercey,” said the Colonel. “I am a relation of the family at Greyshott, who perhaps, you may have heard, are in great trouble at this moment. I have come to you, Miss Hewitt – and I hope you will pardon me for disturbing you – to know whether, by any chance, you could furnish us with Gervase Piercey’s address.”

“Ah, you’re from the Pierceys,” said Miss Hewitt. “I thought as much – though there ain’t that friendship between me and the Pierceys that should make them send to me in their trouble. And what relation may you be, if a person might ask?”

“I am a cousin; but that is of little importance. The chief thing is that Mr. Gervase Piercey is absent, and his address is not known. His mother is ill – ”

“I heard of that,” said the old lady, drawing a long breath as of satisfaction. “She’s a hard one, too, she is. It would be something sharp that made her ill. I suppose as she heard – ”

“She heard nothing. There was no mental cause for her illness, if that is what you mean. She had been sitting, talking just as usual – ”

“Oh – h!” cried Miss Hewitt, with an air of disappointment; “then it wasn’t from the shock? And what’s their meaning, then, Mister Piercey – if you call yourself Piercey – in sending to me?”

“That is precisely what I can’t tell you,” said Gerald, with much candour. “I confess that it seems absurd, but I supposed, perhaps, that you would know.”

“And why should it seem absurd? I know a deal more about the Pierceys than you think for, or any fine gentleman that comes questioning of me, as if I were an old hag in the village. Oh! I know the way that you, as calls yourselves gentlemen, speak!”

“I hope,” said Gerald, surprised, “that I don’t speak in any unbecoming way, or fail in respect to any woman. It is very likely that you know much more than I do, and the question is one that is easily settled. Could you throw any light upon the question where Gervase Piercey is, and if so, will you tell me his address?”

She looked at him for a moment as if uncertain how to respond – whether to play with the victim any longer, or to make a pounce and end it. Then she said, quickly, “Did he send you himself?”

“Did who send me?”

“Giles – Sir Giles; don’t you understand? Was it him as thought of Patience Hewitt? That’s what I want to know.”

“Miss Hewitt, Lady Piercey is very ill – ”

“Ah! he never was in love with her,” cried the old lady; “never! He married her – he was drawn in to do it; but I know as he hated it when he did it. It never was for her, if it was he has sent you. Not for her, but for – ”

She stopped and looked at him again, with a glare in her eyes, yet resolved, apparently, not to pounce but to play a little longer. “Ah! so my lady’s ill, is she? She’s an old woman, more like an old hag, I can tell you, than me. She was thirty-five, if she was a day, when she married Sir Giles, and high living and nothing to do has made her dreadful. He never could abear fat women, and it serves him right. Some people never lose their figure, whatever their age may be.”

She sat very upright in her chair, with a smile of self-complacence, nodding her head. “Well,” she said, “and what’s wanted of me? Not to go and nurse my lady, I suppose? They don’t want me to do that?”

“They wish to know,” said Colonel Piercey, restraining himself with an effort, “Mr. Gervase Piercey’s address.”

“Their son’s address?” said Miss Hewitt. “He’s the heir, you know. The village folks calls him the Softy, but there couldn’t nothing be proved against him. He’ll be Sir Gervase after his father, and nobody can’t prevent that. And how is it as they don’t know their own son’s address? and for why should they send you to me? Me, a lady living quiet in her own house, meddling with none of them, how should I know their son’s address?”

“I have told you I have not the slightest light to throw on this question. It appears that your niece is in London, and that she was seen, or it is supposed she was seen, with my cousin.”

“And what then?” cried the old lady. “You think, perhaps, as that Softy led my Patty wrong. Ho, ho! ho, ho!” She laughed a low guttural laugh, prolonging it till Colonel Piercey’s exasperation was almost beyond bearing. “You think as he was the gay Lotharium and she was the young Lavinyar, eh? Oh, I’ve read plenty of books in my time, and I know how gentlemen talk of them sort of things. No, she ain’t, Mister Piercey. My Patty is one that knows very well what she is about.”

“So I have heard, also. I believe it is supposed that as he is such a fool, your niece may have married him, Miss Hewitt.”

“And so she have, just!” cried the old lady, springing from her chair. She waved her arms in the air and uttered a hoarse “Hooray!” “That is just what has happened, mister; exactly true, as if you’d been in all the plans from the first. You tell Sir Giles as there is a Patty Hewitt will be Lady Piercey, after all, and not the Queen herself couldn’t prevent it. Just you tell him that from me; Patience, called for her aunt, and thought to be like me, though smaller – my brother being an ass and marrying a little woman. But that’s just the gospel truth. She’s Mrs. Gervase Piercey, now, and she’ll be Lady Piercey when the time comes. Oh!” cried Miss Hewitt, sinking back in her chair, exhausted, “but I’d like to be there when he hears. And I’d like to tell her, I should,” she added, with a fierce glare in her eyes.

Gerald had risen when she did, and stood holding the back of his chair. Fortunately, he had great command of his temper, though the provocation was strong. He was silent while she settled herself again in her seat, and rearranged her cap-strings and the folds of her gown, though the flowers in her head-dress quivered with excitement and triumph. He said, “I fear you will never have that satisfaction. Lady Piercey is dying, and, happily, knows nothing about this. Perhaps your revenge might be more complete if you would summon her son to see her before she dies.”

Miss Hewitt was too much occupied by what she had herself said to pay much attention to him. It was only after some minutes of murmuring and smiling to herself, that she began to recall that he had made a reply. “What was you saying, Mr. Piercey – eh? If you was counting on succeeding you’re struck all of a heap, and I don’t wonder, for there’s an end of you, my fine gentleman! There’ll be a family and a large family, you take your oath of that. None of your marrying in-and-in cousins and things, but a fine, fresh, new stock. What was you saying? Dying is she, that woman? Well, we’ve all got to die. She’s had her share above most, and taken other folks’s bread out of their mouths, and she must take her share now. Nobody’s a-going to die instead of her. That’s a thing as you’ve got to do when your time comes for yourself.”

“And, happily,” said Gerald, “she knows nothing of all this. Perhaps if she were permitted to see her son – ”

“Goodness gracious me!” cried Miss Hewitt, rousing up: “do you hate her like that? I think you must be the devil himself, to put that into a body’s head. It’s a disappointment to me, dreadful, that she should die and not know; but to send him to tell her, and the woman at her last breath – Oh! Lord, what wickedness there is in this world! Man! what makes you hate her like that?”

“Will you allow her to see her son?” Colonel Piercey asked.

The old woman rose up again in her agitation. One of the old Puritan divines describes Satan as putting so big a stone into the sinner’s hand to throw at his enemy, that the bounds of human guilt were over-passed and the almost murderer pitched it at his tempter instead. This suggestion was to Patience Hewitt, in the sense in which she understood it, that too-heavy stone. The desire for revenge had been very strong in her. She had waited and plotted all her life for the opportunity of returning to Sir Giles the reward of his desertion of her, and she had attained her object, and a furious delight was in it. But to seethe the kid in his mother’s milk is a thing about which the most cruel have their prejudices. To bring the Softy back to shout his news into the ear of the dying woman, that was a more fiendish detail than she had dreamed of. She rose up and sat down again, and clasped her hands and unclasped them, and turned over the terrible temptation in her mind. No doubt it would be the very crown of vengeance, to prove to Sir Giles’ wife that she, whom she had supplanted, was the victor at the last. That was what she had hoped for all through. She had hoped that it was some rumour of what had happened that had been the cause of Lady Piercey’s illness. A stroke! it was quite natural she should have a stroke when she heard; it was the vengeance of God long deferred for what she had done unpunished so many years ago. But between this, in which she felt a grim joy, and the other, there was a great gulf. To send for Gervase, in order that he, with his own hand, should give his mother her death-blow, the horrible thought made her head giddy and her heart beat. It was a temptation – the most dreadful of temptations. It seized upon her imagination even while it filled her with horror. It answered every wild desire of poetic justice in the untutored mind: never had been any vengeance like that. It was a thing to be told, and shuddered at, and told again. “Oh! for goodness gracious sake, go along with you, go along with you,” she cried, putting out her hands to push the Colonel away, “for I think you must be the very devil himself.”

It was almost with the same words that Gerald Piercey answered Margaret, who met him eagerly as he returned. Sir Giles was out in the garden with Dunning and Osy, and there was no one to disturb the consultation of these two enemies or friends. “Have you heard anything of him?” cried Margaret. Colonel Piercey answered almost solemnly, “I have seen the devil; if he ever takes a woman’s form.”

“I have heard that she was a dreadful old woman.”

“And I have made a dreadful suggestion to her, which she is turning over in her dreadful mind. She hates poor old Lady Piercey with a virulence which – perhaps you may understand it, knowing the circumstances; I don’t. She is terribly disappointed that it was not the news which was the cause of the illness. And I have suggested that if the bridegroom could be sent home, the old lady might still hear it before she dies.”

“The news – the bridegroom! Then it is so? They are married!”

“That’s better, I suppose,” said the Colonel, “than if it had been worse.”

Margaret coloured high at this enigmatical speech. “To everybody but Aunt Piercey,” she said. “My uncle will get used to the idea; but his mother! It is better he should not come than come to tell her that.”

“If he comes we can surely keep him silent,” Colonel Piercey said. “I thought that was the one thing to be attained at all risks.”

“And so it was. And I thank you, Cousin Gerald, and we can but do our best.”

Lady Piercey turned her eyes towards the door as Margaret went into the room. A dreadful weariness was in those living eyes, which had not closed, in anything that could be called sleep, since her seizure. She had lain there dead, but for that look, for three days, unable to move a finger. But always her eyes turned to the door whenever it opened, however softly. Sometimes the film of a doze came over them; but no one came in without meeting that look – the look of a soul in prison, with no sense but that one remaining to make existence a fact. How much she knew of what was passing around her, they could not tell; or of her own condition, or of what was before her. All she seemed to know was that Gervase did not come. Sometimes her eyes fell upon Margaret with a look which seemed one of angry appeal. And then they returned to watch the door, which opened, indeed, from time to time, but never to admit her son. Oh, dreadful eyes! Mrs. Osborne shrank from encountering them. It was she, she only of whom they asked that question – she whom they seemed to blame. Where was Gervase? Why did he not come? Was he coming? Speech and hearing were alike gone. Her question was only in her eyes.

And thus the evening and the morning made the fourth day.

CHAPTER XXI

Patty’s ambitious schemes were crowned with complete success, and the poor Softy was made the happiest and most triumphant man in the world, on the day on which his mother was taken ill. Was it some mysterious impalpable movement in the air that conveyed to Lady Piercey’s brain a troubled impression of what was taking place to her only son? But this is what no one can tell. As for Gervase, his triumph, his rapture, his sense of emancipation, could not be described. He was wild with pleasure and victory. The sharp-witted, clear-headed girl, who had carried out the whole plot, was at last overborne and subjugated by the passion she had roused, and for a time was afraid of Gervase. She had a panic lest his feeble head might give way altogether under such excitement, and she be left in the hands of a madman. Luckily this wild fit did not last long, and Patty gradually brought the savage, which was latent in his undeveloped nature, into control. But she had got a fright, and was still a little afraid of him when the week was over, and her plans were laid for the triumphant return home. She had written to her aunt on the day of her marriage, proclaiming the proud fact, and signing her letter, not with her Christian name, but that of Mrs. Gervase Piercey, in her pride and triumph. Mrs. Gervase Piercey! That she was now, let them rave as they pleased! Nobody could undo what Aunt Patience’s fifty pounds had done. Those whom God had joined together – or was it not rather Miss Hewitt, of Rose Cottage, and ambition and revenge? Patty, however, had no intentions appropriate to such motives in her mind. She was not revolted by the passion of Gervase, as another woman might have been. She felt it to be a compliment more or less; his noise and uproariousness, so that he could scarcely walk along a street without shoutings and loud laughter, did not in the least trouble her. She subdued him by degrees, bidding him look how people stared, and frightening him with the suggestion that the world in general might think him off his head, and carry him off from her, if he did not learn to suppress these vociferous evidences of his happiness: a suggestion which had a great effect upon Gervase, and made him follow her about meekly afterwards to all the sights which she thought it necessary in this wonderful holiday to see. She took him to the Zoological Gardens, which he enjoyed immensely, dragging her about from one cage to another, not letting her off a single particular. They saw the lions fed, they gave buns to the bears, they rode like a couple of children upon the camels and the elephant. Gervase drank deep of every pleasure which the resources of that Garden of Eden permitted. He had not been there since he was a child, and everything was delightful to him. The success was not so great when Patty took him to St Paul’s and the Tower, which she considered to be fashionable resorts, where a bride and her finery ought to be seen, and where Gervase walked about gaping, asking like a child at church when he could get out? Nor at the theatre, where Patty, instructed by the novels she had read, secured a box, and appeared in full costume, with that intoxicating proof that she was now a fine lady and member of the aristocracy, a low dress – and with an opera-glass wherewith to scan the faces and dresses of the other distinguished occupants of boxes. She was herself surprised at various things which she had not learnt from books – the unimpressive character of the ladies’ dresses, and the manner in which they gazed down into what she believed to be the pit, a part of the house which she regarded with scorn. It was not a fashionable house, for to Patty, naturally, a theatre was a theatre, wherever situated; but it was disappointing not to see the flashing of diamonds which she had expected, nor to have other opera-glasses fixed upon herself as a new appearance in the world of fashion, which was what she looked for. And Gervase was very troublesome in the theatre. He kept asking her what those people were doing on the stage, what all that talking was about, and when it would be time to go away. When the merchant of ices and other light refections came round, Gervase was delighted, and even Patty felt that an ice in her box at the theatre was great grandeur; but she was discouraged when she saw that it was not a common indulgence, and that Gervase, peeling and eating oranges, and flinging them about, attracted an attention which was not that sentiment of mingled admiration and envy which Patty hoped to excite. A few experiences of this kind opened her sharp eyes to many things, and reduced the rapture with which she had looked forward to her entry into town as Mrs. Gervase Piercey. But these disenchantments, and scraps of talk which her sharp ears picked up and her still sharper imagination assimilated, suggested to her another kind of operation next time, and left her full of anticipations and the conviction that it only wanted a little preparation, a little guidance, to ensure her perfect triumph.

This strange pair had what seemed to Patty boundless funds for their week in town. Twenty pounds over of Aunt Patience’s gift after paying the expenses of the marriage, had seemed enough for the wildest desires; but when there was added to that twenty pounds more, his mother’s last gift to Gervase, she felt that their wealth was fabulous; far, far too much to expend upon personal pleasure or sightseeing. She permitted herself to buy a dress or two, choosing those which were ready made, and of which she could see the effect at once, both on herself and the elegant young lady who sold them to her; and she put aside a ten-pound note carefully, in case of any emergency. On the whole, however, it was a relief to both parties when they went home, though it took some trouble to convince Gervase that he could not go back to the Manor, leaving his wife at the Seven Thorns. He was not pleased to be told that he too must go and live at the Seven Thorns: “Why, that’s what mother said – and draw the beer!” he cried; “but nothing shall make me draw the beer,” cried Gervase. “Nobody asked you,” Patty said, “you goose. We’re going to live in the west rooms, a beautiful set of rooms that I put all ready, where there’s a nice sofa for you to lie on, and nice windows to look out of and see everything that comes along the road – not like Greyshott, where you never see nothing – the carts and the carriages and the vans going to the fairs, and Punch and Judy, and I can’t tell you all what.” “Well,” said Gervase, “you can stay there, and I’ll come to see you every day; but I must go home.” “What, leave me! and us but a week married!” cried Patty. She made him falter in his resolution, confused with the idea of an arrangement of affairs unfamiliar to him, and at last induced him to consent to go to the Seven Thorns with her on conditions, strenuously insisted upon, that he was not to be made to draw beer. But Gervase did not feel easy on this subject, even when he was taken by the new side-door into the separate suite of apartments which Patty had prepared with so much trouble. When old Hewitt appeared he took care to entrench himself behind his wife.

“I’ll have nothing to do with the beer or the customers, mind you,” he cried nervously. Nobody, however, made any account of Gervase in that wonderful moment of Patty’s return.

“What! it’s you as is the new married couple? and you’ve gone and married ’im?” cried Hewitt, with a tone of indescribable contempt.

“Yes, father! and I’ll thank you to keep a civil tongue in your head; I’ve married him, and I mean to take care of him,” Patty cried, tossing her head.

Old Hewitt laughed a low, long laugh. His mental processes were slow, and the sight of the Softy with his daughter had startled him much; for notwithstanding all that had been said on this subject he had not believed in it seriously. Now, however, that it dawned upon him what had really happened, that his child, his daughter, was actually Mrs. Gervase Piercey, a slow sensation of pride and victory arose in his bosom too. His girl to be Lady Piercey in her time, and drive in a grand carriage, and live in a grand house! The Hewitts were a fine old family, but they had never kept their carriage and pair. A one-horse shay had been the utmost length to which they had gone. Now Patty – Patty, the child! who had always done his accounts and kept his customers in order – Patty, his own girl, was destined to the glory of riding behind two horses and being called “my lady.” The thought made him burst into a long, rumbling subterraneous laugh. Our Patty! it did not seem possible that it could be true.

“That reminds me,” he said a moment after, turning suddenly grave. He called his daughter apart, beckoning with his finger.

Gervase by this time was lolling half out of the open window, delightedly counting the vehicles in sight. “Farmer Golightly’s tax cart, and Jim Mason’s big waggon, and the parson’s pony chaise, and a fly up from the station,” he cried: “it’s livelier than London. Patty, Patty, come and look here.” Gervase turned round, and saw his wife and her father with grave faces consulting together, and relapsed into absolute quiet, effacing himself behind the fluttering curtains with the intention of stealing out of the room as soon as he could and getting away. His mother’s threat about drawing the beer haunted him. Could not she, who could do most things, make that threat come true?

“Patty,” said old Hewitt, “you’ve done it, and you can’t undo it; but there’ll be ever such a rumpus up there.”

“Of course, I know that,” she said calmly; “I’m ready for them. Let them try all they can, there’s nothing they can do.”

“Patty,” said the old innkeeper again, “I’ve something to tell you as you ain’t a-thinking of. About ’Er,” he said, pointing with his thumb over his shoulder.

“What about her? I know she’s my enemy; but you needn’t be frightened, father. I’ve seen to everything, and there’s nothing she can do.”

“It ain’t that as I want you to think of. It’s more dreadful than that. It’s ‘in the midst of life as we are in death,’ ” said Hewitt. “That sort of thing; and they’ve been a-’unting for ’im far and wide.”

“Lord, father, what do you mean?” Patty caught at a confused idea of Sir Giles’ death, and her heart began to thump against her breast.

Hewitt pointed with his thumb, jerking it again and again over his shoulder. “She’s – she’s – dead,” he said.

“Dead!” said Patty, with a shriek, “who’s dead?”

Hewitt, less aware than she of Gervase’s wandering and unimpressionable mind, shook his head at her, jerking his thumb this time in front of him at the young man lolling out of the window. “Usht, can’t ye? Why, ’Er, ’is mother,” he said, under his breath.

A quick reflection passed through Patty’s mind. “Then, I’m her,” she said to herself, but then remembered that this was not the case that Sir Giles’ death alone could make her Lady Piercey. As this flashed upon her thoughts, a bitter regret came into Patty’s mind – regret, keen as if she had loved her, that Lady Piercey was dead, that she should have been allowed to die. Oh, if she had but known! How quickly would she have brought Gervase back to see his mother! Her triumph, whenever it should come, would be shorn of one of its most poignant pleasures. Lady Piercey would not be there to see it! She could never now be made to come down from her place, made to give up all her privileges to the girl whom she despised. Patty felt so genuine a pang of disappointment that it brought the tears to her eyes. “I must tell him,” she said quickly, – the tears were not without their use, too, and it is not always easy to call them up at will.

“I wouldn’t to-night. Let ’im have ’is first night in peace,” said the innkeeper, “and take ’is beer, and get the good of it like any other man.”

“Go down, perhaps you think, to your men in the parlour, and smoke with them, and drink with them, and give you the chance to say as he’s your son-in-law? and his mother lying dead all the time. No, father, not if I know it,” cried Patty, and she gave her head a very decided nod. “I know what I’m about,” she added; “I know exactly what he’s going to do. So, father, you may go, and you can tell ’Liza that we’ll now have tea.”

“I tell ’Liza! I’ll do none of your dirty errands,” said old Hewitt; but his indignation answered Patty’s purpose, who was glad to get rid of him, in order that her own duty might be performed. She went forward to the window where Gervase was sitting, and linked her arm in his, not without some resistance on the part of the Softy, who was wholly occupied with his new pleasure.

“Let alone, I tell you, Pat! One white horse on the off side, that counts five for me; and a whole team of black ’uns for the other fellow. Where’s all those black horses come from, I should like to know?”

“Gervase dear, don’t you do it; don’t make a game with the black horses. It’s dreadful unlucky. They’re for a funeral, come from town on purpose. And oh! Gervase dear, do listen to me! for whose funeral do you suppose?”

“Is it a riddle?” said Gervase, showing his teeth from ear to ear.

“Oh hush, hush, there’s a good boy! It’s not like you to make a joke of such dreadful things.”

“Why can’t you say then what it is, and have done with it?” Gervase said.

“That’s just one of the sensible things you say when you please. Gervase – you remember your mother?”

“I remember my mother? I should think I remembered my mother. You know it’s only a week to-day – or was it yesterday?”

“It was yesterday. You might remember the day you were married, I think, without asking me,” said Patty, with spirit. “Well, then, you parted from her that day. She wasn’t ill then, was she, dear?”

Upon which Gervase laughed. “Mother’s always ill,” he said. “She has such health you never know when she’s well, or, at least, so she says. It’s in her head, or her liver, or her big toe. No!” he cried, with another great laugh, “it’s father as has the devil in his big toe.”

“Gervase, do be serious for a moment. Your mother has been very ill, dreadful bad, and we never knew – ”

“I told you,” he said calmly, “she’s always bad; and you can never tell from one day to another, trust herself, when she mayn’t die.”

“Oh, Gervase,” cried Patty, holding his arm with both her hands: “you are fond of her a little bit, ain’t you, dear? She’s your mother, though she hasn’t been very nice to me.”

“Lord,” cried Gervase, “how she will jump when she knows that I’m here, and on my own hook, and have got a wife of my own! Mind, it is you that have got to tell her, and not me.”