e bent on giving life to the half-living body. Nothing
else mattered. She could not have travelled farther from Brodrick in her
widest, wildest wanderings. The very hours conspired against them. Jane
had to sleep in the afternoon, to make up for bad nights. Brodrick was
apt to sleep in the evenings, after dinner, when Jane revived a little
and was free.

The year passed and she triumphed. The little half-living body had
quickened. The child, Henry said, would live; he might even be fairly
strong. His food nourished him. He was gaining weight and substance.
Jane was to be congratulated on her work which was nothing short of a
miracle. _Her_ work; _her_ miracle; Henry admitted it was that. He had
had to stand by and do nothing. He couldn't work miracles. But if Jane
had relaxed her care for a moment there was no miracle that could have
saved the child.

To Jane it _was_ a miracle. It was as if her folding arms had been his
antenatal hiding-place; as if she had brought him forth with anguish a
second time.

She would not have admitted that she loved him more than his brother.
Jacky was as good as gold; but he was good with Gertrude and happy with
Gertrude. The baby was neither good nor happy with anybody but Jane.
Between her and the little twice-born son there was an unbreakable tie.
He attached himself to his mother with a painful, pitiful passion. Out
of her sight he languished. He had grown into her arms. Every time he
was taken from them it was a rending of flesh from tender flesh.

His attachment grew with his strength, and she was more captured and
more chained than ever. He "had" her, as Tanqueray would have said, at
every turn. Frances and Sophy, the wise maternal women, shook their
heads in their wisdom; and Jane smiled in hers. She was wiser than any
of them. She had become pure womanhood, she said, like Gertrude. She
defied Gertrude's womanhood to produce a superior purity.

Brodrick had accepted the fact without astonishment. The instinct of
paternity was strong in him. Once married to Jane her genius had become
of secondary importance. The important thing was that she was his wife;
and even that was not so important as it had been. Only last year he had
told her, jesting, that he never knew whether she was his wife or not.
He hardly knew now (they saw so little of each other); but he did know
that she was the mother of his children.

In the extremity of her anguish Jane had not observed this change in