With him the same feeling was almost the stronger because he was so well aware of the blot upon himself caused by the lowness of his own father's marriage.

But a man, he held, could raise a woman to his own rank, whereas a woman must accept the level of her husband.
"Bread and meat and chairs and tables are very serious things, Reg." "You would then recommend her to take this man, and pass altogether out of your own sphere ?" "What can I do for her?
I am an old woman who will be dead probably before the first five years of her married life have passed over her.
And as for recommending, I do not know enough to recommend anything.
Does she like the man ?" "I am sure she would feel herself degraded by marrying him." "I trust she will never live to feel herself degraded.

I do not believe that she could do anything that she thought would degrade her.

But I think that you and I had better leave her to herself in this matter." Further on in the same evening, or rather late in the night,--for they had then sat talking together for hours over the fire,--she made a direct statement to him.

"When I die, Reg, I have but L5,000 to leave behind me, and this I have divided between you and her.