"Well.let them say!" he answered vigorously."Grace, you're making too much of all this.You'll be ill if you aren't careful.Pull yourself together." "Of course we've got to go," she answered."If you think that we can go on living here after all that's happened--""Well, why not?" he interrupted."We haven't done anything.It's only--""I know what you're going to say." (It was one of Grace's most irritating habits that she finished other people's sentences for them in a way that they had not intended) "that if they look at it properly they'll see that it wasn't our fault.But will they look at it properly? Of course they won't.You know what cats they are.
They're only waiting for a chance.What I mean is that this is just the chance they've been waiting for.""How can you go on and every time you preach they'll be looking up at you and saying 'There's a brother of a murderer'? Why, fancy what you'd feel!"Paul jumped in his chair."What do you mean, Grace? The brother of a murderer?""What else am I?" Grace began to warm her podgy hands."It came out at the inquest that I wouldn't see the man, didn't it? Maggie thinks me a murderer.I see it in her eyes every time.What I mean to say, Paul, is, What are you going to do about Maggie?"Grace's voice changed at that question.It was as though that other trouble of the scandal were nothing to her compared with this matter of Maggie's presence.Paul turned and looked at her.She dropped her voice to a whisper and went on:
"I won't stay with Maggie any more.No, no, no! You must choose, Paul, between Maggie and me.What I mean is that it simply isn't safe in the same house with her.You may not have noticed it yourself, but I've seen it coming on a long time.I have indeed.She isn't right in her head, and she hates me.She's always hated me.