“It’s nothing.”  She went in and tore it up, and then began to write—­a very short letter, whose gist was “Come and save me.”

It is not good to see your wife crying when she writes—­especially if you are conscious that, on the whole, your treatment of her has been reasonable and kind.  It is not good, when you accidentally look over her shoulder, to see that she is writing to a man.  Nor should she shake her fist at you when she leaves the room, under the impression that you are engaged in lighting a cigar and cannot see her.

Lilia went to the post herself.  But in Italy so many things can be arranged.  The postman was a friend of Gino’s, and Mr. Kingcroft never got his letter.

So she gave up hope, became ill, and all through the autumn lay in bed.  Gino was distracted.  She knew why; he wanted a son.  He could talk and think of nothing else.  His one desire was to become the father of a man like himself, and it held him with a grip he only partially understood, for it was the first great desire, the first great passion of his life.  Falling in love was a mere physical triviality, like warm sun or cool water, beside this divine hope of immortality:  “I continue.”  He gave candles to Santa Deodata, for he was always religious at a crisis, and sometimes he went to her himself and prayed the crude uncouth demands of the simple.  Impetuously he summoned all his relatives back to bear him company in his time of need, and Lilia saw strange faces flitting past her in the darkened room.

“My love!” he would say, “my dearest Lilia!  Be calm.  I have never loved any one but you.”

She, knowing everything, would only smile gently, too broken by suffering to make sarcastic repartees.

Before the child was born he gave her a kiss, and said, “I have prayed all night for a boy.”

Some strangely tender impulse moved her, and she said faintly, “You are a boy yourself, Gino.”

He answered, “Then we shall be brothers.”

He lay outside the room with his head against the door like a dog.  When they came to tell him the glad news they found him half unconscious, and his face was wet with tears.

As for Lilia, some one said to her, “It is a beautiful boy!” But she had died in giving birth to him.

Chapter 5

At the time of Lilia’s death Philip Herriton was just twenty-four years of age—­indeed the news reached Sawston on his birthday.  He was a tall, weakly-built young man, whose clothes had to be judiciously padded on the shoulders in order to make him pass muster.  His face was plain rather than not, and there was a curious mixture in it of good and bad.  He had a fine forehead and a good large nose, and both observation and sympathy were in his eyes.  But below the nose and eyes all was confusion, and those people who believe that destiny resides in the mouth and chin shook their heads when they looked at him.