the other she saw that it cradled a little naked child. And at
the sight there came a thorn in her breast that pricked her. The child
stirred in its sleep, and crawled to the place of the angel's breast, and
it fondled it with searching lips and hands. Then it wailed, and as she
heard its cry the thorn pressed sharper into Anne's breast; and the
angel's eyes turned to her with an immortal anguish, and pity, and
despair. She looked, and saw that its breast was as the breast of the
little child. And she was moved to compassion at the helplessness of them
both, of the heavenly and of the earthly thing; and she stooped and
lifted the child, and laid it to her own breast, and nourished it; and
had peace from her pain.

CHAPTER XVIII

It was the first day in Lent. Anne had come down in a state of
depression. She was silent during breakfast, and Majendie became absorbed
in his morning paper. So much wisdom he had learnt. Presently he gave a
sudden murmur of interest, and looked up with a smile. "I see," said he,
"your friend Mrs. Gardner has got a little son."

"Has she?" said Anne coldly.

The blood flushed in her cheeks, and a sudden pang went through her and
rose to her breasts with a pricking pain, such pain as she had felt once
in her dream, and only once in her waking life before. She thought of
dear little Mrs. Gardner, and tried to look glad. She failed miserably,
achieving an expression of more than usual austerity. It was the
expression that Majendie had come to associate with Lent. He thought he
saw in it the spiritual woman's abhorrence of her natural destiny. And
with the provocation of it the devil entered into him.

"Is there anything in poor Mrs. Gardner's conduct to displease you?"

She looked at him in a dull passion of reproach.

"Oh," she said, "how can you be so unkind to me!"

Her breast heaved, her lower lip trembled. She rose suddenly, pressing
her handkerchief to her mouth, and left the room. He heard the study door
open hastily and shut again. And he said to himself, as if with a sudden
lucid freshness, "What an extraordinary woman my wife is. If I only knew
what I'd done."

As she had left her breakfast unfinished, he waited a judicious interval
and then went to fetch her back.

He found her standing by the window, holding her hands tight to her
heaving sides, trying by main force to control the tempest of her sobs.
He approached her gently.

"Go away," she whispered, through lo