out by her sides in utter
exhaustion. When he bent over her she closed her eyes, but her lips moved
as if she were trying to speak to him. He felt her breath upon his face,
but he could hear no words.

"What is it?" he whispered to the nurse who stood beside him. She held in
one arm the new-born child, hooded and folded in a piece of flannel.

The nurse touched him on the shoulder. "She's trying to tell you to look
at your little daughter, sir."

He turned and saw something--something queer and red between two folds of
flannel, something that stirred and drew itself into puckers, and gave
forth a cry.

And as he touched the child, his strength melted in him, as it melted
when he laid his hands for the first time upon its mother.

CHAPTER XIX

After the birth of her child Anne was restored to her normal poise and
self-possession. She appeared the large, robust, superb creature she had
once been. The serenity of her bearing proclaimed that in her motherhood
her nature was fulfilled. She had given herself up to the child from the
first moment that she held it to her breast. She had found again her
tenderness, her gladness, and her peace.

Majendie had waited for this. He believed that if the child made her so
happy, she could hardly continue to cherish an aversion from its father.

In the months that followed he witnessed the slow destruction of this
hope. The very fact that Anne had become "normal" made its end more
certain. There were no longer any affecting moods, any divine caprices
for him to look to, nor was there much likelihood of a profounder change.
Such as his wife was now, she always would be.

She had settled down.

And he had accepted the situation.

He had had his illusions. He loved the child. It was white, and weak, and
sickly, as if it drew a secret bitterness from its mother's breast. It
kept Anne awake at night with its crying. Once Majendie got up, and came
to her, and took it from her, and it was suddenly pacified, and fell
asleep in his arms. He had risen many nights after that to quiet it. It
had seemed to him then that something passed between them with the small
tender body his arms took from her and gave to her again. But he had
abandoned that illusion now. And when he saw her with the child he said
to himself, "I see. She has got all she wanted. She has no further use
for me."

Thus the child that should have united separated them. Anne took from
him whatever small comfor