“Mummy, I’m so frightened.”

“What is it, darling?  Have you had a little dream?”

“No.  Mummy, let me stay in your bed.”

Anne let her stay, glad of the comfort of the little warm body, and afraid to vex the child.  She drew the blankets round her.  “There,” she said, “go to sleep, pet.”

But Peggy was in no mind to sleep.

“Mummy, your hair’s all loose,” she said; and her fingers began playing with her mother’s hair.

“Mummy, where’s daddy?  Is he in his little bed?”

“He’s away, darling.  Go to sleep.”

“Why does he go away?  Is he coming back again?”

“Yes, darling.”  Anne’s voice shook.

“Mummy, did you cry when Auntie Edie went away?”

Anne kissed her.

“Auntie Edie’s dead.”

“Lie still, darling, and let mother go to sleep.”

Peggy lay still, and Anne went on thinking.

There was nothing to be done.  She would have to take him back again, always.  Whatever shame he dragged her through, she must take him back again, for the child’s sake.

Suddenly she remembered Peggy’s birthday.  It was only last week.  Surely she had not known then.  She must have forgotten for a time.

Then tenderness came, and with it an intolerable anguish.  She was smitten and was melted; she was torn and melted again.  Her throat was shaken, convulsed; then her bosom, then her whole body.  She locked her teeth, lest her sobs should break through and wake the child.

She lay thus tormented, till a memory, sharper than imagination, stung her.  She saw her husband carrying the sleeping child, and his face bending over her with that look of love.  She closed her eyes, and let the tears rain down her hot cheeks and fall upon her breast and in her hair.  She tried to stifle the sobs that strangled her, and she choked.  That instant the child’s lips were on her face, tasting her tears.

“Oh, mummy, you’re crying.”

“No, my pet.  Go to sleep.”

“Why are you crying?”

Anne made no sound; and Peggy cried out in terror.

“Mummy—­is daddy dead?”

Anne folded her in her arms.

“No, my pet, no.”

“He is, mummy, I know he is.  Daddy!  Daddy!”

If Majendie had been in the house she would have carried the child into his room, and shown him to her, and relieved her of her terror.  She had done that once before when she had cried for him.

But now Peggy cried persistently, vehemently; not loud, but in an agony that tore and tortured her as she had seen her mother torn and tortured.  She cried till she was sick; and still her sobs shook her, with a sharp mechanical jerk that would not cease.

Gradually she grew drowsy and fell asleep.

All night Anne lay awake beside her, driven to the edge of the bed, that she might give breathing space to the little body that pushed, closer and closer, to the warm place she made.