tered. Who knew to what it might lead
in these days? At great length she explained to Gyp the infinite care
with which she had always "brought Daisy up like a lady--and now this is
the result." And she would look piercingly at Gyp's hair or ears, at her
hands or her instep, to see how it was done. The burial worried her
dreadfully. "I'm using the name of Daisy Wing; she was christened
'Daisy' and the Wing's professional, so that takes them both in, and it's
quite the truth. But I don't think anyone would connect it, would they?
About the father's name, do you think I might say the late Mr. Joseph
Wing, this once? You see, it never was alive, and I must put something
if they're not to guess the truth, and that I couldn't bear; Mr. Wagge
would be so distressed. It's in his own line, you see. Oh, it is
upsetting!"

Gyp murmured desperately:

"Oh! yes, anything."

Though the girl was so deathly white and spiritless, it soon became clear
that she was going to pull through. With each day, a little more colour
and a little more commonness came back to her. And Gyp felt
instinctively that she would, in the end, return to Fulham purged of her
infatuation, a little harder, perhaps a little deeper.

Late one afternoon toward the end of her week at Mildenham, Gyp wandered
again into the coppice, and sat down on that same log. An hour before
sunset, the light shone level on the yellowing leaves all round her; a
startled rabbit pelted out of the bracken and pelted back again, and,
from the far edge of the little wood, a jay cackled harshly, shifting its
perch from tree to tree. Gyp thought of her baby, and of that which
would have been its half-brother; and now that she was so near having to
go back to Fiorsen, she knew that she had not been wise to come here. To
have been in contact with the girl, to have touched, as it were, that
trouble, had made the thought of life with him less tolerable even than
it was before. Only the longing to see her baby made return seem
possible. Ah, well--she would get used to it all again! But the
anticipation of his eyes fixed on her, then sliding away from the meeting
with her eyes, of all--of all that would begin again, suddenly made her
shiver. She was very near to loathing at that moment. He, the father of
her baby! The thought seemed ridiculous and strange. That little
creature seemed to bind him to her no more than if it were the offspring
of some chance encounter, some pu