I was so overcome by Martin’s splendid courage, so afraid to believe fully that the boundless relief I had looked for so long had come to me at last, that for some time I could not speak.  And when I did speak, though my heart was clamouring loud, I only said: 

“But do you really think that . . . that we can now be husband and wife?”

“Think it?” he cried, with a peal of laughter.  “I should think I do think it.  What’s to prevent us?  Nothing!  You’ve suffered enough, my poor girl.  But all that you have gone through has to be forgotten, and you are never to look back again.”

“Yes, yes, I know I should be happy, very happy,” I said, “but what about you?”

“Me?”

“I looked forward to being a help—­at least not a trouble to you, Martin.”

“And so you will be.  Why shouldn’t you?”

“Martin,” I said (I knew what I was doing, but I couldn’t help doing it), “wouldn’t it injure you to marry me . . . being what I am now . . . in the eyes of the world, I mean?”

He looked at me for a moment as if trying to catch my meaning, and then snatched me still closer to his breast.

“Mary,” he cried, “don’t ask me to consider what the damnable insincerities of society may say to a case like ours.  If you don’t care, then neither do I. And as for the world, by the Lord God I swear that all I ask of it I am now holding in my arms.”

That conquered me—­poor trembling hypocrite that I was, praying with all my soul that my objections would be overcome.

In another moment I had thrown my arms about my Martin’s neck and kissed and kissed him, feeling for the first time after my months and years of fiery struggle that in the eyes of God and man I had a right to do so.

And oh dear, oh dear!  When Martin had gone back to his work, what foolish rein I gave to my new-born rapture!

I picked baby up from the hearthrug and kissed her also, and then took her into the dairy to be kissed by her grandmother, who must have overheard what had passed between Martin and me, for I noticed that her voice had suddenly become livelier and at least an octave higher.

Then, baby being sleepy, I took her upstairs for her morning nap, and after leaning over her cradle, in the soft, damp, milk-like odour of her sweet body and breath, I stood up before the glass and looked at my own hot, tingling, blushing cheeks and sparkling eyes.

Oh, what gorgeous dreams of happiness came to me!  I may have been the unmarried mother of a child, but my girlhood—­my lost girlhood—­was flowing back upon me.  A vision of my marriage-day rose up before me and I saw myself as a bride, in my bridal veil and blossoms.

How happy I was going to be!  But indeed I felt just then as if I had always been happy.  It was almost as though some blessed stream of holy water had washed my memory clean of all the soilure of my recent days in London, for sure I am that if anybody had at that moment mentioned Ilford and the East End, the bricklayer and the Jew, or spoken of the maternity homes and the orphanages, I should have screamed.