“She wouldn’t have married me.  No, Edie.  You’re assuming that I’ve lived to regret that I married her.  I never have regretted it for one single moment.  Not for myself, that is.  For her, yes.  Granted that I’m as unhappy as you please, I’d rather be unhappy with her than happy without her.  See?”

“Walter—­if you keep true to her, I believe you’ll have your happiness yet.  I don’t know how it’s coming.  It may come very late.  But it’s bound to come.  She’s good—­”

He assented with a groan.  “Oh, much too good.”

“And the goodness in her must recognise the goodness in you; when she understands.  I believe she’s beginning to understand.  She doesn’t know how much she understands.”

“Understands what?”

“Your goodness.  She loved you for it.  She’ll love you for it again.”

“My dear Edie, you’re the only person who believes in my goodness—­you and Peggy.”

“I and Peggy.  And Charlie and the Hannays.  And Nanna and the Gardners—­and God.”

“I wish God would give Anne a hint that He thinks well of me.”

“Dear—­if you keep true to her—­He will.”

If he kept true to her!  It was the second time she had said it.  It was almost as if she had divined what had so nearly happened.

“I think,” she said, “I’d like to talk to Anne, now, while I can talk.  You see, once they go giving me morphia”—­she closed her eyes.  “Just let me lie still for half an hour, and then bring Anne to me.”

She lay still.  He watched her for an hour.  And he knew that in that hour she had prayed.

He found Anne sitting on the nursery floor, playing with Peggy.  “Edie wants you,” he said, loosening Peggy’s little hands as they clung about his legs.

“Mother must go, darling,” said she.

But all Peggy said was, “Daddy’ll stay.”

He did not stay long.  He had to restrain himself, to go carefully with
Peggy, lest he should help her to make her mother’s heart ache.

Anne found Nanna busied about the bed.  Nanna was saying, “Is that any easier, Miss Edie?”

“It’s heavenly, Nanna,” said Edie, stifling a moan.  “Oh dear, I hope in the next world I shan’t feel as if my spine were still with me, like people when their legs are cut off.”

“Miss Edie, what an idea!”

“Well, Nanna, you can’t tell whether it mayn’t be so.  Anne, dear, you’ve got such a nice, pretty body, why have you such a withering contempt for it?  It behaves so well to you, too.  That’s more than I can say of mine; and yet, I believe I shall quite miss it when it’s gone.  At any rate, I shall be glad that I was decent to the poor thing while it was with me.  Run away now, please, Nanna, and shut the door.”

Nanna thought she knew why Miss Edie wanted the door shut.  She, too, had her intuitive forebodings.  She was aware, the whole household was aware, that the mistress cared more for her child than for the husband who had given it her.  Their master’s life was not altogether happy.  They wondered many times how he was going to stand it.