ad
arrived--as there did every six months--parcels of toys, addressed to
him and stamped with the Dawlish postmark and containing a piece of
paper scrawled "With love from father."

She would be troubled by such moments when they came, for she was
growing distantly fond of Roger. There was something touching about this
pale child, whose hunger for love was so strong that it survived and
struggled through the clayey substance of its general being which had
smothered all other movements of its soul; who was so full of love
itself that it accepted the empty sham of feeling she gave it and
breathed on it, and filled it with its own love, and was so innocent
that it did not detect that nobody had really given it anything, and
went on rejoicing, thus redeeming her from guilt. He would come and
stand at the door of any room in which she was sitting, and she would
pretend not to know he was there, so that she need caress him or say the
forced loving word; but when at length, irritated by his repeated
sniffs, she turned towards him, she would find the grey marbles of his
eyes bright with happiness, and he would cry out in his dreadful
whistling voice, "Ah, you didn't know I was watching you!" and run
across undoubtingly to her arms. There would be real gratitude in the
embrace she gave him. His trust in her had so changed the moment that
she need not feel remorse for it.

It had seemed quite possible that they could go on like this for ever,
until the very instant that all was betrayed. She had had a terrible
time with Richard, who was now seven years old. After their midday meal
he had asked permission to go and spend the afternoon playing with some
other boys on the marshes, and she had given it to him with a kiss,
under which she had thought he seemed a little sullen. When Roger and
she had nearly finished their tea he had appeared at the door, had stood
there for a minute, and then, throwing up his head, had said doggedly:
"I've had a lovely time at the circus." She had left the bread-knife
sticking in midloaf and sat looking at him in silence. This was real
drama, for she had refused to take them to the circus and forbidden him
to go by himself because there was a measles epidemic in the
neighbourhood. It flashed across her that by asking for permission to
play with the boys on the marshes when he meant to go to the circus he
had told her a lie. The foolish primitive maternal part of her was
convulsed with horror at his f