to love a human being, this
or that one, not a crowd. She had been starving, killing the self which
was her value. This home on the Devon coast received her like an earthly
paradise; looking back on New Wanley, she saw it murky and lurid; it was
hard to believe that the sun ever shone there. But for the most part,
she tried to keep it altogether from her mind, tried to dissociate her
husband from his public tasks, and to remember him as the man with whom
her life was irrevocably bound up. When delight in Stella's poetry was
followed by fear, she strengthened herself by thought of the child
she bore beneath her heart; for that child's sake she would accept the
beautiful things offered to her, some day to bring them, as rich gifts
to the young life. Her own lot was fixed; she might not muse upon it,
she durst not consider it too deeply. There were things in the past
which she had determined, if by any means it were possible, utterly to
forget. For the future, there was her child.

Mutimer came to Exmouth when she had been there three weeks, and
he stayed four days. Mrs. Boscobel had an opportunity of making his
acquaintance.

'Who contrived that marriage?' she asked of Mr. Westlake subsequently.
'Our lady mother, presumably.'

'I have no reason to think it was not well done,' replied Mr. Westlake
with reserve.

'Most skilfully done, no doubt,' rejoined the lady.

But at the end of the year, the Westlakes returned to London, the
Boscobels shortly after. Mrs. Waltham and her daughter had made no other
close connections, and Adela's health alone allowed of her leaving the
house for a short drive on sunny days. At the end of February the child
was born prematurely; it entered the world only to leave it again. For a
week they believed that Adela would die. Scarcely was she pronounced out
of danger by the end of March. But after that she recovered strength.

May saw her at Wanley once more. She had become impatient to return. The
Parliamentary elections were very near at hand, and Mutimer almost lived
in Belwick; it seemed to Adela that duty required her to be near him, as
well as to supply his absence from New Wanley as much as was possible.
She was still only the ghost of her former self, but disease no longer
threatened her, and activity alone could completely restore her health.
She was anxious to recommence her studies, to resume her readings to the
children; and she desired to see Mr. Wyvern. She understood by this