Kilquhanity had married this woman with a face of tin and a heart of
leather. It needed no confession from Kilquhanity's own lips to explain
by what hard paths he had come to the reckless hour when, at Blackpool,
he had left her for ever, as he thought. In the flush of his criminal
freedom he had married again--with the woman who shared his home on the
little hillside, behind the Parish Church, she believing him a widower.
Mary Muddock, with the stupidity of her class, had never gone to the
right quarters to discover his whereabouts until a year before this day
when she stood in the Avocat's library. At last, through the War Office,
she had found the whereabouts of her missing Matthew. She had gathered
her little savings together, and, after due preparation, had sailed away
to Canada to find the soldier boy whom she had never given anything but
bad hours in all the days of his life with her.

"Well," said the woman, "you're a lawyer--have you nothing to say? You
pay his pension--next time you'll pay it to me. I'll teach him to leave
me and my kid and go off with an Irish cook!"

The Avocat looked her steadily in the eyes, and then delivered the
strongest blow that was possible from the opposite side of the case.
"Madame," said he, "Madame, I regret to inform you that Matthew
Kilquhanity is dying."

"Dying, is he?" said the woman, with a sudden change of voice and
manner, but her whine did not ring true. "The poor darlin', and only
that Irish hag to care for him! Has he made a will?" she added eagerly.

Kilquhanity had made no will, and the little house on the hillside,
and all that he had, belonged to this woman who had spoiled the first
part of his life, and had come now to spoil the last part.