III.
And now my George and his Mary turned upon the immediate future.
Conning the map of ways and means and roads of action, a desolate and
almost horrifying country presented itself. No path that might be
followed offered pleasant prospects. All led past that ogre's castle
at 14 Palace Gardens; at the head of each stood the ogress shape of
Mrs. Chater, gnashing for blood and bones over the disaster to her
first-born. She must be faced.
George flared a torch to light the gloom: "But why should you go near
her, dearest? Let me do it. I'll take the children back. I'll see her.
I'll get your boxes."
Even the sweetest women trudge through life handicapped by the
preposterous burden of wishing to do what their sad little minds hold
right. It is a load which, too firmly strapped, makes them dull
companions on the highway.
Mary said: "It wouldn't be _right_, dear. The children are in my
charge; how could I send them back to their mother in the care of a
strange man? And it wouldn't be right to myself, either. It would look
as if I admitted myself in the wrong. No; I must, must face her."
George's torch guttered; gave gloom again. He tried a second: "Well,
I'll come with you. That's a great idea. She won't dare say much while
I'm there."
"Oh, it wouldn't be _right_, Georgie.
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