What if the pigeon has a widowed mother dependent on his prosperity, or half a dozen children who will be involved in his ruin?
Is the hawk to forego his natural prey for any such paltry consideration as a vulgar old woman or a brood of squalling brats?
Captain Paget was not guilty of any persistent unkindness towards the woman whose fate he had deigned to link with his own.

The consciousness that he had conferred a supreme honour oh Mary Anne Kepp by offering her his hand, and a share of his difficulties, never deserted him.

He made no attempt to elevate the ignorant girl into companionship with himself.

He shuddered when she misplaced her h's and turned from her peevishly, with a muttered oath, when she was more than usually ungrammatical: but though he found it disagreeable to hear her, he would have found it troublesome to set her right; and trouble was a thing which Horatio Paget held in gentlemanly aversion.

The idea that the mode of his existence could be repulsive to his wife--that this low-born and low-bred girl could have scruples that he never felt, and might suffer agonies of remorse and shame of which his coarser nature was incapable--never entered the Captain's mind.