He was at Bristol by a quarter past nine, and had to change for a slow train, which by ten o’clock brought him to Yatton, the little junction for Clevedon.  It was a fine starry night, but extremely cold.  For the few minutes of detention he walked restlessly about the platform.  His chief emotion was now a fear lest all might not go well with Monica.  Whether he could believe what she had to tell him or not, it would be worse if she were to die before he could hear her exculpation.  The anguish of remorse would seize upon him.

Alone in his compartment, he did not sit down, but stamped backwards and forwards on the floor, and before the train stopped he jumped out.  No cab was procurable; he left his bag at the station, and hastened with all speed in the direction that he remembered.  But very soon the crossways had confused him.  As he met no one whom he could ask to direct him, he had to knock at a door.  Streaming with perspiration, he came at length within sight of his own house.  A church clock was striking eleven.

Alice and Virginia were both standing in the hall when the door was opened; they beckoned him into a room.

‘Is it over?’ he asked, staring from one to the other with his dazzled eyes.

‘At four this afternoon,’ answered Alice, scarce able to articulate.  ‘A little girl.’

‘She had to have chloroform,’ said Virginia, who looked a miserable, lifeless object, and shook like one in an ague.

‘And all’s well?’

‘We think so—­we hope so,’ they stammered together.

Alice added that the doctor was to make another call to-night.  They had a good nurse.  The infant seemed healthy, but was a very, very little mite, and had only made its voice heard for a few minutes.

‘She knows you sent for me?’

’Yes.  And we have something to give you.  You were to have this as soon as you arrived.’

Miss Madden handed him a sealed envelope; then both the sisters drew away, as if fearing the result of what they had done.  Widdowson just glanced at the unaddressed missive and put it into his pocket.

‘I must have something to eat,’ he said, wiping his forehead.  ’When the doctor comes I’ll see him.’

This visit took place while he was engaged on his supper.  On coming down from the patient the doctor gave him an assurance that things were progressing ‘fairly well’; the morning, probably, would enable him to speak with yet more confidence.  Widdowson had another brief conversation with the sisters, then bade them good-night, and went to the room that had been prepared for him.  As he closed the door he heard a thin, faint wail, and stood listening until it ceased; it came from a room on the floor below.

Having brought himself with an effort to open the envelope he had received, he found several sheets of notepaper, one of them, remarked immediately, in a man’s writing.  At this he first glanced, and the beginning showed him that it was a love-letter written to Monica.  He threw it aside and took up the other sheets, which contained a long communication from his wife; it was dated two months ago.  In it Monica recounted to him, with scrupulous truthfulness, the whole story of her relations with Bevis.