He and Christine were married, no matter how strongly they might resent it.  The only thing left to them was to make the best they could of life.

She sat with Christine that night till the girl was asleep.  She was not very much Christine’s senior in years, but she felt somehow old and careworn as she sat there in the silent room and listened to the girl’s soft breathing.

She got up and went over to stand beside her.

So young, such a child, it seemed impossible that she was already a wife, this girl lying there with her soft hair falling all about her.

Gladys sighed and walked over to the window.  It must be a great thing to be loved, she thought rather sadly; nobody had ever loved her; no man had ever looked at her as Kettering looked at little Christine. . . .  She opened the window and looked out into the darkness.

It was a mild, damp night.  Grey mist veiled the garden and shut out the stars; everything was very silent.

If only Christine’s mother had been here to take the responsibility of it all, she thought longingly; she had so little influence with Christine herself.  She closed the window and went back to the bedside.

Christine was moving restlessly.  As Gladys looked down at her she began to laugh in her sleep—­a little chuckle of unaffected joy.

Gladys smiled, too, involuntarily.  She was happy in her dreams, at any rate, she thought with a sense of relief.

And then suddenly Christine woke with a start.  She sat up in bed, throwing out her arms.

“Jimmy——­” But it was a cry of terror, not of joy.  “Jimmy—­Jimmy—­don’t hurt me. . . . oh!”

She was sobbing now—­wild, pitiful sobs.

Gladys put her arms round her; she held her tightly.

“It’s all right, dear.  I’m here—­nobody shall hurt you.”  She stroked her hair and soothed and kissed her; she held her fast till the sobbing ceased.  Then: 

“I’ve been dreaming,” said Christine tremblingly.  “I thought”—­she shivered a little—­“I thought—­thought someone was going to hurt me.”

“Nobody can hurt you while I am here; dreams are nothing—­nobody believes in dreams.”

Christine did not answer.  She had never told Gladys of that one moment when Jimmy had tried to strike her—­when beside himself with passionate rage and misery he had lifted his hand to strike her.

She fell asleep again, holding her friend’s hand.

CHAPTER XIX

A CHANCE MEETING

Two days passed uneventfully away, but Kettering did not come to Upton House.  Christine’s first faint resentment and amazement had turned to anger—­an anger which she kept hidden, or so she fondly believed.

She hardly went out.  She spent hours curled up on the big sofa by the window reading, or pretending to read.  Gladys wondered how much she really read of the books which she took one by one from the crowded library.