Anne seized the little hands and kissed them.  “My lamb,” she said, “what are you doing to your poor mother’s face?” She did not see, as Edith saw, that Peggy, a consummate little sculptor, was moulding her mother’s face into the face of love.

“I should never have dreamed,” said Anne, “of turning him away, if I had thought he was really going to reform.  Besides, I was afraid he would be bad for Walter.”

“It didn’t strike you that Walter might be good for him?”

“It struck me that I had to be strong for Walter.”

“Ah, Walter can be strong for all of us.”  She paused on that, to let it sink in.  Anne’s face was thoughtful.

“Anne, if you believed that all I’ve said to you was true, would you still object to having Charlie here?”

“Certainly not.  I would be the first to welcome him.”

“Then, will you write to him of your own accord, and tell him that, if what I’ve told you is true, you’ll be glad to see him?  He knows why you couldn’t receive him before, dear, and he respects you for it.”

Anne thought better of Mr. Gorst for that respect.  It was the proper attitude; the attitude she had once vainly expected Majendie to take.

“After all, what have I to do with it?  He comes to see you.”

“Yes, dear; but I shan’t always be here for him to see.  And if I thought that you would help Walter to look after him—­will you?”

“I will do what I can.  My little one!”

Anne bowed her head over the soft forehead of her little one.  She had a glad and solemn vision of herself as the protector of the penitent.  It was in keeping with all the sanctities and pieties she cherished.  She had not forgotten that Canon Wharton (a saint if ever there was one) had enjoined on her the utmost charity to Mr. Gorst, should he turn from his iniquity.

She was better able to admit the likelihood of that repentance because Mr. Gorst had never stood in any close relation to her.  His iniquity had not profoundly affected her.  But she found it impossible to realise that Majendie’s influence could count for anything in his redemption.  Where her husband was concerned Anne’s mind was made up, and it refused to acknowledge so fine a merit in so gross a man.  She was by this time comfortably fixed in her attitude, and any shock to it caused her positive uneasiness.  Her attitude was sacred; it had become one of the pillars of her spiritual life.  She was constrained to look for justification lest she should put herself wrong with God.

She considered that she had found it in Majendie’s habits, his silences, his moods, the facility of his decline upon the Hannays and the Ransomes.  He was determined to deteriorate, to sink to their level.

To-night, when he remarked tentatively that he thought he would dine at the Hannays’, she made an effort to stop him.

“Must you go?” said she.  “You are always dining with them.”