ing thing she had
ever yet endured, but she would go through with it for the love of the
unborn. Joanna was not so unsophisticated as to fail to realize the
difficulties and complications of her resolve--how much her child would
suffer for want of a father's name; memories of lapsed dairymaids had
stressed in her experience the necessity of a marriage no matter how
close to the birth. But she did not rate these difficulties higher than
the misery of such a home as hers and Albert's would be. Better anything
than that. Joanna had no illusions about Albert now--he'd have led her a
dog's life if she had married him in the first course of things; now it
would be even worse, and her child should not suffer that.

No, she would do her best. Possibly she could arrange things so as to
protect, at least to a certain extent, the name her baby was to bear.
She would have to give up Ansdore, of course--leave Walland Marsh ...
her spirit quailed, but she braced it fiercely. She was going through
with this--it was the only thing Lawrence had told her that she could
do--go softly all her days--to the very end. That end was farther and
bitterer than either he or she had imagined then, but she would not have
to go all the way alone. A child--that was what she had always wanted;
she had tried to fill her heart with other things, with Ansdore, with
Ellen, with men ... but what she had always wanted had been a child--she
saw that now. Her child should have been born in easy, honourable
circumstances, with a kind father--Arthur Alce, perhaps, since it could
not be Martin Trevor. But the circumstances of its birth were her doing,
and it was she who would face them. The circumstances only were her sin
and shame, her undying regret--since she knew she could not keep them
entirely to herself--the rest was joy and thrilling, vital peace.

The little train pulled itself together, and ran on into Brodnyx
station. Joanna climbed down on the wooden platform, and signalled to
the porter-stationmaster to take out her box.

"What, you back, Miss Godden!" he said, "we wasn't expecting you."

"No, I've come back pretty sudden. Do you know if there's any traps
going over Pedlinge way?"

"There's Mrs. Furnese come over to fetch a crate of fowls. Maybe she'd
give you a lift."

"I'll ask her," said Joanna.

Mrs. Furnese, too, was much surprised to see her back, but she said
nothing about it, partly because she was a woman of few words, and
partly bec