Tony Walker

and like a great many other people for a quite ulterior motive.

She wants to keep us quiet, and she bribes us to do so.

Don't argue.

I know I'm right.

Now, we've been here only six months, but we've learned quite a lot in that time.'

We've learnt that the Pendleham family have always shown a vicious inherited streak—drunkards, ruthless womanisers, and worse, even criminals, and just occasionally a brilliant exception.

This old woman is the last of the line, and it'll be a very good thing when the horrid brood is extinct, in my opinion.

"'Of course,' said the rector.

"'We have to trust Miles' opinion for all this really, and we know he's utterly biased against her.

He won't even speak to her.'

He's been churchwarden here for forty years, so he ought to know, replied Mrs. Redvale.

Besides, he loses financially by his attitude.

She never buys a thing at his shop.

He strikes me as a perfectly honest and sincere old man, don't you think so?

I must say I do.

Well then, what's his story, that she was crossed in love when very young, some other woman, as she believes, stealing her man away, so she made up her mind to have revenge on her sex in her own stealthy, devilish way?

He thinks her mind was permanently tainted at that time, that she is actually, if not technically, insane.

"'It all sounds so melodramatic,' murmured the rector.

"'Melodramatic doesn't mean impossible,' answered his wife sharply.

"'There's plenty of real melodrama in the world.