Yes.  She had certainly missed him.

As Marie Kerr stood by the fire in her sitting-room with Osborn’s letter in her hand, she awoke fully, as from a dream, to the understanding of what was about to befall her.

She was once more, after this year of miraculous growth and power and recovery, to take unto herself her husband.

The door opened and the maid came in quietly, a teacloth over her arm, the tray in her hand.  She arranged all to please the taste of the mistress who stood watching as if she watched something unusual.

For a whole year, in that flat, she had been the person whose will was government, who had to be pleased and obeyed.  She had made the laws, kept the purse, and set the clock.

It had been a wonderful year.

She laid aside her furs, sat down and poured out her tea.  Presently she heard George come in—­he now went to school for the whole, instead of the half day—­and the happy clatter of the children in the dining-room.  There was no one to cry testily:  “For God’s sake keep those children quiet!” as if the children were aliens—­crimes of the mother.

When she had finished her tea, and had heard the maid come out of the dining-room, she went in, to romp with her children.  It was an hour she loved and for which she now had zest; she could enjoy it to the full.  They played Blind Man’s Buff, in which even the baby joined staggeringly, and Hunt the Slipper—­the baby’s little one, which she wanted to keep whenever it was smuggled under the edge of her little flannel petticoat; and for the last ten minutes Marie went back to the sitting-room to tinkle on the piano, while the maid was requisitioned once more to make a fourth to play Musical Chairs.  Then the children came into the sitting-room, hand in hand, and stood by the piano and sang the lullaby their mother had taught them.  She joined her voice to theirs with all its old strength and sweetness.  And she heard their prayers and tucked them up in their beds.

Then she went into the room which for a year had been hers and, while she changed into her soft black frock, the realisation came that she was again to share it.  Her lips curled.

“I won’t!” she said to herself.

Why couldn’t they go on for ever in this flat as they were now, sufficient unto themselves, she and the children?

She returned to her book by the fire.  And while she read on deeper into the love-story, absorbed and credulous in spite of herself, the front door bell rang.

Julia and Desmond Rokeby came in with a great air of mystery and jubilation.  They walked with the rich expectancy of people treading golden streets, and though they came up to Marie, captured and embraced her, laughed, and began relevant explanations both together, their eyes looked through her, away and beyond her, and she had a sense of being right outside their scheme for ever and evermore.

Loneliness assailed her rather bleakly as she stood with a smiling mouth, gazing from one to the other and trying to gather the gist of their news.