"There's no use talking no more about it; what's done is done."
The cottage door was open, and in the still evening they could see their child swinging on the gate. The moment was tremulous with responsibility, and yet the words as they fell from their lips seemed accidental.
"You'd much better go back to your wife. Once married, always married, that's my way of thinking."
"I'm sorry to hear you say it, Esther. Do you think a man should stop with his wife who's been treated as I have been?"
Esther avoided a direct reply. Why should he care about the child? He had never done anything for him. William said that if he had known there was a child he would have left his wife long ago. He believed that he loved the child just as much as she did, and didn't believe in marriage without children.
"We ain't getting no for'arder by discussing them things," he said, interrupting her. "We can't say good-bye after this evening and never see one another again."
"Why not? I'm nothing to you now; you've got a wife of your own; you've no claim upon me; you can go your way and I can keep to mine."
"There's that child. I must do something for him."
"Well, you can do something for him without ruining me."
"Yes, ruining me. I ain't going to lose my character by keeping company with a married man. You've done me harm enough already, and should be ashamed to think of doing me any more. You can pay for the boy's schooling if you like, you can pay for his keep too, but you mustn't think that in doing so you'll get hold of me again."
"Followers ain't allowed where I am. You're a married man. I won't have it."
"When you get your divorce! I don't know how it'll be then. But here's Mrs. Lewis; she's a-scolding of Jackie for swinging on that 'ere gate. Naughty boy; he's been told twenty times not to swing on the gate."
Esther complained that they had stayed too long, that he had made her late, and treated his questions about Jackie with indifference. He might write if he had anything important to say, but she could not keep company with a married man. William seemed very downcast. Esther, too, was unhappy, and she did not know why. She had succeeded as well as she had expected, but success had not brought that sense of satisfaction which she had expected it would. Her idea had been to keep William out of the way and hurry on her marriage with Fred. But this marriage, once so ardently desired, no longer gave her any pleasure. She had told Fred about the child. He had forgiven her. But now she remembered that men were very forgiving before marriage, but how did she know that he would not reproach her with her fault the first time they came to disagree about anything? Ah, it was all misfortune. She had no luck. She didn't want to marry anyone.