I'm just Maggie Cardinal.--All the same I believe one can do what one wants to.I don't believe people can make one do things.""Do you think any one could make me not love you if they tried? Ishall love you always, whatever happens.I know I shall never change.I'm not one to change.I'm obstinate.Father used to say 'obstinate as a pig.'"That made her think of the old days at St.Dreot's, just then, as they seemed, so remote.She began to tell him of those old days, of the Vicarage, of the holes in the floor and the ceiling, of her loneliness and the way the villagers used to talk, of her solitary walks and looking down on to Polchester from the hill-top, of her father's sudden death, of Uncle Mathew...
"He's a funny old codger," said Martin."What does he do?""I don't know," said Maggie."I really don't know how he lives I'm afraid it's something rather bad.""I've known men like that," said Martin, "plenty, but it's funny that one of them should be connected with you.It doesn't seem as though you could have anything to do with a man like that.""Oh, but I like him!" said Maggie."He's been very kind to me often.
When I was all alone after father died he was very good--" She stopped abruptly remembering how he'd come into her bedroom.
"Drink's been his trouble, and never having any money.He told me once if he had money he'd never do a thing he shouldn't." "Yes,"said Martin."That's what they always say when they haven't any money, and then when they have any it's worse than ever."He was thinking, perhaps, of himself.At any rate to stop remorseful thoughts he began to tell her about his own childhood.
"Mine was very different from yours, Maggie," he said."I wasn't lonely.You don't know what a fuss people made of me.I was conceited, too.I thought I was chosen, by God, out of all the world, that I was different from every one else, and better too.
When I was only about nine, at home one Sunday they asked me if I'd say a prayer, and I did, before them all, made it up and went on for quarter of an hour.Lord! I must have been an awful child.And outside the religious time I was as wicked as I could be.I used to go down into the kitchen and steal the food and I'd dress up as a ghost to frighten Amy and I'd break mother's china.I remember once, after we'd had a service in the drawing-room and two girls had gone into hysterics, I stole down into the kitchen in my nightdress to get some jam and I found one of the Elders making love to the cook.