“We can’t manage it without being married, Gerda; and as for bastards⁠—”

“Hush!” she cried. “We’re talking nonsense. Gipoo Cooper told me I should never have a child.”

Wolf was silenced by this; and then, after a pause, “I don’t believe Urquhart would make any fuss,” he said meditatively. “It wouldn’t interfere with my work.”

“What you don’t realize,” she protested in a low voice, “is how completely different my family is from yours. Why, Father never says a word like he’d been educated or been to School.”

But Wolf refused to let this pass.

“Perhaps you don’t realize, Missy,” he flung out, in a clear, emphatic voice, “that my father died in Ramsgard Workhouse!”

Her commentary upon this information was to snatch his hand and raise it to her lips.