"Yes, darling." Anne's voice shook.

"Mummy, did you cry when Auntie Edie went away?"

Anne kissed her.

"Auntie Edie's dead."

"Lie still, darling, and let mother go to sleep."

Peggy lay still, and Anne went on thinking.

There was nothing to be done. She would have to take him back again,
always. Whatever shame he dragged her through, she must take him back
again, for the child's sake.

Suddenly she remembered Peggy's birthday. It was only last week. Surely
she had not known then. She must have forgotten for a time.

Then tenderness came, and with it an intolerable anguish. She was smitten
and was melted; she was torn and melted again. Her throat was shaken,
convulsed; then her bosom, then her whole body. She locked her teeth,
lest her sobs should break through and wake the child.

She lay thus tormented, till a memory, sharper than imagination, stung
her. She saw her husband carrying the sleeping child, and his face
bending over her with that look of love. She closed her eyes, and let the
tears rain down her hot cheeks and fall upon her breast and in her hair.
She tried to stifle the sobs that strangled her, and she choked. That
instant the child's lips were on her face, tasting her tears.

"Oh, mummy, you're crying."

"No, my pet. Go to sleep."

"Why are you crying?"

Anne made no sound; and Peggy cried out in terror.

"Mummy--is daddy dead?"

Anne folded her in her arms.

"No, my pet, no."

"He is, mummy, I know he is. Daddy! Daddy!"

If Majendie had been in the house she would have carried the child into
his room, and shown him to her, and relieved her of her terror. She had
done that once before when she had cried for him.

But now Peggy cried persistently, vehemently; not loud, but in an agony
that tore and tortured her as she had seen her mother torn and tortured.
She cried till she was sick; and still her sobs shook her, with a sharp
mechanical jerk that would not cease.

Gradually she grew drowsy and fell asleep.

All night Anne lay awake beside her, driven to the edge of the bed, that
she might give breathing space to the little body that pushed, closer and
closer, to the warm place she made.

Towards dawn Peggy sighed three times, and stretched her limbs, as if
awakening out of her sleep.

Then Anne turned, and laid her hands on the dead body of her child.

CHAPTER XXXIII

The yacht had lain all night in Fawlness creek. Majendie had slept on
board. He had sent Ste