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Mrs Caffyn inclined her head towards Madge

'Oh, no! Nothing, nothing'

'Don't you think,atwixt you, as it was a

flyin' in the face of Providence to turn hied to him, and I have heard you say he was very fond of you I

suppose there were so, and a kind of a

quarrel like, and so you parted, but that's nothing It ht to be made up What was it about?'

'There was no quarrel'

'Well, of course, if you don't like to say anything more to me, I

won't ask you I don't want to hear any secrets as I shouldn't hear

I speak only because I can't abear to see you here when I believe as

everything ht have a house of your

own, and a good husband, and be happy for the rest of your days It

isn't too late for that now I knohat I know, and as how he'd

marry you at once'

'Oh, my dear Mrs Caffyn, I have no secret froood to ht'

'If you can't love ato have him, but if there's a child that does make a

difference, for one has to think of the child and of being

respectable There's soh, for

that matter, I've see'd respectable people at Great Oakhurst as were

ten ti for oodish bit to marry the man whose child wor mine'

'For myself I could, but it wouldn't be just to him' 'I don't see what you mean'

'I mean that I could sacrificehim cruelly if I were to accept him and did not