be pulled up
by the insistent pain in her head. She returned so carefully that
Perigal's train was steaming into the station as she reached the
booking office. She walked over the bridge to get to his platform, to
be stopped for a few moments by the rush, roar, and violence of a West
of England express, passing immediately under where she stood. The
disturbance of the passing train stunned and then jarred her
overwrought nerves, causing the pain in her face to get suddenly worse.
As she met those who had got out of the train Perigal would come by,
she wondered if he would so much as notice the disfigurement of her
face. For her part, if he came to her one-armed and blind, it would
make no difference to her; indeed, she would love him the more. Perigal
stepped from the door of a first class compartment, seemingly having
been aroused from sleep by a porter; he carried a bag.

Mavis noticed, with a great concern, how careworn he was looking--a
great concern, because, directly she set eyes on him, she realised the
immensity of her love for him. At that moment she loved him more than
she had ever done before; he was not only her lover, to whom she had
surrendered herself body and soul, but also the father of her unborn
little one. Faintness threatened her; she clung to the handle of a
weighing machine for support.

"More trouble!" he remarked, as he reached her.

She looked at him with frightened eyes, finding it hard to believe the
evidence of her ears.

"W-what?" she faltered.

"Heavens!"

"What's the matter, dear?"

"What have you done to your face?"

"I--I hoped you wouldn't notice. I've had an abscess."

"Notice it! Haven't you looked in the glass?"

Mavis bit her lip.

"I shouldn't have thought you could look so--look like that," he
continued.

"What trouble did you mean?" she found words to ask.

"This. Why you sent for me."

She felt as if he had stabbed her. She stopped, overwhelmed by the blow
that the man she loved so whole-heartedly had struck her.

"What's up?" he asked.

"Nothing--only--"

"Only what?"

"You don't seem at all glad to see me."

She spoke as if pained at and resentful of his coldness. He looked at
her, to watch the suffering in her eyes crystallise into a defiant
hardness.

"I am, no end. But I'm tired and cold. Wait till we've had something to
eat," he said kindly.

Mavis melted. Her love for him was such that she found it no easy
matter being angry with him.

"H