t
their separation was threatened. As his troubled eyes looked helplessly
(sometimes it seemed appealingly) into hers, she vowed again and again
that he should never be taken away to be nursed by strangers. Something
would happen, something must happen to prevent such a mutilation of her
holiest feelings as would be occasioned by her enforced separation from
her sick boy. Of course, why had she not thought of it before? Her
lover, the boy's father, would return with the messenger, to be
reconciled to her over the nursing of the ailing little life back to
health and strength. She had read much the same sort of thing in books,
which were always informed with life.

The minutes of the American clock, which had belonged to Miss Nippett,
laboriously totalled into an hour. Mavis could hear Gunner uneasily
shuffling in the room below. The late August evening was drawing in.
Mavis quite succeeded in persuading herself that this would prove the
last night of her misfortunes.

Mr Trivett was the first to return. He brought six pounds from Miss
Toombs, with a note saying that it was all she could lay hands upon.
This, with the four which Mavis possessed, made ten. Gunner smiled
amiably and set about collecting his clay pipes, which he had left in
odd corners of the cottage. Then, after half an hour of weary waiting,
Mrs Trivett came to the door, which Mavis opened with trembling hands.
She was alone. Her face proclaimed the fruitlessness of her errand.

"Mr Charles Perigal was out for the evening and would not be back till
quite late," she had been told.

This decided Mavis to act upon a resolve that, had been formulating in
her mind while waiting for Mrs Trivett's return.

"Give me half an hour," she said to the sullen Gunner. "I'll make it
well worth your while." She then went upstairs to kiss her baby before
setting out.

"Where are you going, ma'am?" asked tearful Mrs Trivett, who had
followed her upstairs.

"To Mr Devitt. He's kind at heart. I know, if I can see him, he'll give
me what I want."

"But will he see you?"

"I'll see to that. Promise you won't leave baby while I'm gone."

Mavis took a last look of her darling as she went out of the door. She
then let herself out and sped in the direction of the Bathminster Road.
She scarcely knew, she did not care, what she should say when she came
face to face with Devitt. She had almost forgotten that he had been
informed of her secret. All she knew was that she was