, walking under trees which she
did not see, and up hills and down valleys without noticing the
incline of either. At times, through the tatter of her mind there
blazed a memory of her mother lying sick at home, waiting for her
daughter to return with food, and at such memories she gripped her
hands together frightfully and banished the thought.--A moment's
reflection and she could have hated her mother.

It was nearly five o'clock before she left the Park. She walked in a
fog of depression. For hours she had gone hither and thither in the
well-remembered circle, every step becoming more wayward and aimless.
The sun had disappeared, and a gray evening bowed down upon the
fields; the little wind that whispered along the grass or swung the
light branches of the trees had a bleak edge to it. As she left the
big gates she was chilled through and through, but the memory of her
mother now set her running homewards. For the time she forgot her
quest among the trees and thought only, with shame and fear, of what
her mother would say, and of the reproachful, amazed eyes which would
be turned on her when she went in. What could she say? She could not
imagine anything. How could she justify a neglect which must appear
gratuitous, cold-blooded, inexplicable?

When she had brought the food and climbed the resonant stairs she
stood outside the door crying softly to herself. She hated to open the
door. She could imagine her mother sitting up in the bed dazed and
unbelieving, angry and frightened, imagining accidents and terrors,
and when she would go in ... she had an impulse to open the door
gently, leave the food just inside and run down the stairs out into
the world anywhere and never come back again. At last in desperation
she turned the handle and stepped inside. Her face flamed, the blood
burned her eyes physically so that she could not see through them. She
did not look at the bed, but went direct to the fireplace, and with a
dogged patience began mending the fire. After a few stubborn moments
she twisted violently to face whatever might come, ready to break into
angry reproaches and impertinences, but her mother was lying very
still. She was fast asleep, and a weight, an absolutely real pressure,
was lifted from Mary's heart. Her fingers flew about the preparation
of the beef tea. She forgot the man whom she had gone to meet. Her
arms were tired and hungry to close around her mother. She wanted to
whisper little childish wor