“We won’t quarrel over that there shillin’, an’ a cup o’ tea is yours whenever you want it.”

Mavis smiled faintly.  She was beginning to discover how it paid to stick up for herself.

As the comparative cool of the evening succeeded to the heat of the day, Mavis’s agitation of mind was such that she could scarcely remain in bed.  The fact of her physical helplessness served to increase the tension in her mind, consequently her temperature.  She feared what would happen to her already over-taxed brain should she not receive the letter she desired.  When she presently heard the postman’s knock at the door, her heart beat painfully; she lay in an immense suspense, with her hands pressed against her throbbing head.  After what seemed a great interval of time (it was really three minutes), Mrs Gowler waddled into the room, bringing a letter, which Mavis snatched from her hands.  To her unspeakable relief, it was in Perigal’s handwriting, and bore the Melkbridge postmark.  She tore it open, to read the following:—­

“My dearest girl,—­Why no letter?  Are you well?  Have you any news in the way of a happy issue from all your afflictions?  I have left Wales for good.  Love as always, C. D. P.”

These hastily scribbled words brought a healing joy to Mavis’s heart.  She read and re-read them, pressing her baby to her heart as she did so.  As a special mark of favour, Jill was permitted to kiss the letter.  If Mavis had thought that a communication, however scrappy, from her lover would bring her unalloyed gladness, she was mistaken.  No sooner was her mind relieved of one load than it was weighted with another; the substitution of one care for another had long become a familiar process.  The intimate association of mind and body being what it is, and Mavis’s offspring being dependent on the latter for its well-being, it was no matter for surprise that her baby developed disquieting symptoms.  Hence, Mavis’s new cause for concern.

Contrary to the case of unwedded mothers, as usually described in the pages of fiction, Mavis’s love for her baby had, so far, not been particularly active, this primal instinct having as yet been more slumbering than awake.  As soon after his birth as she was capable of coherent thought, she had been much concerned at the undeniable existence of the new factor which had come into her life.  There was no contradicting Mrs Gowler, who had said that “babies take a lot of explaining away.”  She reflected that, if the fight for daily bread had been severe when she had merely to fight for herself, it would be much harder to live now that there was another mouth to fill, to say nothing of the disabilities attending her unmarried state.  The fact of her letter to Perigal having been returned through the medium of the dead-letter office had almost distracted her with worry, and it is a commonplace that this variety of care is inimical to the existence of any form of love.