“For a few minutes, then,” the nurse replied, and she left them.

Osborn put his face down and cried tears that he could not stop.  He longed to feel Marie’s hand, forgiving him, on his head, but she had no comfort for him.  She lay so still, without sound or sign, that soon, checking his grief with an effort nearly too big for him, he looked up and saw that she was crying, too.  She was too weak to cry passionately, but her weeping was very bitter.  This frightened him, so that he sprang up on tiptoes and called the nurse back.  He kept his own shamed, wretched face in shadow.

The nurse sent him away and Marie had not spoken one word.

He crept into the kitchen and made tea, found cold food and ate a scratch sort of meal; he had eaten nothing since early morning, and then not much.

He had received a great big shock.

He did not know that women suffered so.  He had sometimes read how after the birth of a baby, the husband went in and found his wife, pale perhaps, tired perhaps, but radiant, joyful, triumphant.  He had not known that anguished mothers wept such bitter tears.  Nothing was as he had been led to believe.

Could she ever get well?

The nurse came in quickly and softly, and saw the haggard man sitting at a deal table, eating his scraps.  She viewed the situation wisely.

“You’ll have to get the porter’s wife in to look after you a bit,” she said.  “You can’t go on like that.  And my hands will be full.”

“Nurse,” said Osborn, “was she very bad?  Is that the—­the worst?”

“There are worse cases,” replied the nurse briskly, “but she has suffered a great deal.  What did you expect?  She’s a delicate, slim girl, and we’re not savages now, more’s the pity.  The first baby is always the hardest, too.”

“The first is the last here,” said Osborn savagely.

The nurse smiled wisely.  “Oh,” she said placidly, “no doubt you’ll be sending for me again in a couple of years, or less.”

“What do you think I’m made of?” Osborn cried.

“The same as most men,” said the nurse.  “But will you tell me where to find the patent groats, for I’ve come to make gruel and I haven’t time to talk.”

“I’m afraid we never keep any groats or things,” he exclaimed.  “I’m sure we don’t.”

The nurse answered confidently:  “Mrs. Kerr is sure to have bought everything.”

Search in the larder revealed the groats, and the nurse began the cooking over the gas-stove.  While she made the gruel, Osborn thought of Marie awaiting her trial, preparing for it ... buying groats.

He wished he had known what he knew now, so that he could have helped her more, have thought of the groats for her.

“Nurse,” he asked, “do you think she can ever get quite well?”

“Of course she will.  Rest and good food will be all she wants.”

“Nurse, can I go and say good night to her?”