CHAPTER XX

Nancy and Godfrey walked home under the starlight in silence. When
they entered the oaken parlour, Godfrey threw himself into his
chair, while Nancy laid down her bonnet and shawl, and stood on the
hearth near her husband, unwilling to leave him even for a few
minutes, and yet fearing to utter any word lest it might jar on his
feeling. At last Godfrey turned his head towards her, and their
eyes met, dwelling in that meeting without any movement on either
side. That quiet mutual gaze of a trusting husband and wife is like
the first moment of rest or refuge from a great weariness or a great
danger--not to be interfered with by speech or action which would
distract the sensations from the fresh enjoyment of repose.

But presently he put out his hand, and as Nancy placed hers within
it, he drew her towards him, and said--

"That's ended!"

She bent to kiss him, and then said, as she stood by his side,
"Yes, I'm afraid we must give up the hope of having her for a
daughter. It wouldn't be right to want to force her to come to us
against her will. We can't alter her bringing up and what's come of
it."

"No," said Godfrey, with a keen decisiveness of tone, in contrast
with his usually careless and unemphatic speech--"there's debts
we can't pay like money debts, by paying extra for the years that
have slipped by. While I've been putting off and putting off, the
trees have been growing--it's too late now. Marner was in the
right in what he said about a man's turning away a blessing from his
door: it falls to somebody else. I wanted to pass for childless
once, Nancy--I shall pass for childless now against my wish."

Nancy did not speak immediately, but after a little while she asked--
"You won't make it known, then, about Eppie's being your daughter?"

"No: where would be the good to anybody?--only harm. I must do
what I can for her in the state of life she chooses. I must see who
it is she's thinking of marrying."

"If it won't do any good to make the thing known," said Nancy, who
thought she might now allow herself the relief of entertaining a
feeling which she had tried to silence before, "I should be very
thankful for father and Priscilla never to be troubled with knowing
what was done in the past, more than about Dunsey: it can't be
helped, their knowing that."

"I shall put it in my will--I think I shall put it in my will.
I shouldn't like to leave anything to be found out, like this of
Dunsey," said Godfrey, meditatively. "But I can't see anything
but difficulties that 'ud come from telling it now. I must do what
I can to make her happy in her own way. I've a notion," he added,
after a moment's pause, "it's Aaron Winthrop she meant she was
engaged to. I remember seeing him with her and Marner going away
from church."

"Well, he's very sober and industrious," said Nancy, trying to
view the matter as cheerfully as possible.

Godfrey fell into thoughtfulness again. Presently he looked up at
Nancy sorrowfully, and said--

"She's a very pretty, nice girl, isn't she, Nancy?"

"Yes, dear; and with just your hair and eyes: I wondered it had
never struck me before."

"I think she took a dislike to me at the thought of my being her
father: I could see a change in her manner after that."

"She couldn't bear to think of not looking on Marner as her
father," said Nancy, not wishing to confirm her husband's painful
impression.

"She thinks I did wrong by her mother as well as by her. She
thinks me worse than I am. But she _must_ think it: she can never
know all. It's part of my punishment, Nancy, for my daughter to
dislike me. I should never have got into that trouble if I'd been
true to you--if I hadn't been a fool. I'd no right to expect
anything but evil could come of that marriage--and when I shirked
doing a father's part too."

Nancy was silent: her spirit of rectitude would not let her try to
soften the edge of what she felt to be a just compunction. He spoke
again after a little while, but the tone was rather changed: there
was tenderness mingled with the previous self-reproach.

"And I got _you_, Nancy, in spite of all; and yet I've been
grumbling and uneasy because I hadn't something else--as if I
deserved it."

"You've never been wanting to me, Godfrey," said Nancy, with quiet
sincerity. "My only trouble would be gone if you resigned yourself
to the lot that's been given us."

"Well, perhaps it isn't too late to mend a bit there. Though it
_is_ too late to mend some things, say what they will."