was no assurance in her tone, nothing to remind him
that Maggie had been the spoiled child of pleasure whose wants were
always reasons; nothing to suggest the perverted consciousness of power.

"Well--" He straightened himself stiffly for departure.

"Are you going?" she said.

"I must."

"Will you--come again?"

"Yes, I'll come, if you want me."

He saw again how piteous, how ill she looked. A pang of compassion went
through him. And after the pang there came a warm, delicious tremor. It
recalled the feeling he used to have when he did things for Edith, a
sensation singularly sweet and singularly pure.

It was consolation in his misery to realise that any one could want him,
even poor, perverted Maggie.

Maggie said nothing. But the flame rose in her face.

Downstairs Majendie found Mrs. Morse waiting for him at the door. "What's
been the matter with her?" he asked.

"I don't rightly know, sir. But between you and me, I think she's fretted
herself ill."

"Well, you've got to see that she doesn't fret, that's all."

He gave into her palm an earnest of the reward of vigilance.

That night he sent off the embroidered pieces to Mrs. Hannay, and the
embroidered frock to Mrs. Ransome; with a note to each lady recommending
Maggie, and Maggie's beautiful and innocent art.

CHAPTER XXIV

As Majendie declined more and more on his inferior friendships, Anne
became more and more dependent on the Eliotts and the Gardners. Her
evenings would have been intolerable without them. Edith no longer
needed her. Edith, they still said, was growing better, or certainly no
worse; and Mr. Gorst spent his evenings in Prior Street with Edie. The
prodigal had made his peace with Anne, and came and went unquestioned. He
was bent on making up for his long loss of Edie, and for the still longer
loss of her that had to be. They felt that his brilliant presence kept
the invading darkness from her door.

Autumn passed, and winter and spring, and in summer Edith was still with
them.

Anne was no longer a stranger in her husband's house since her child had
been born in it; but in the long light evenings, after Peggy had been put
to bed at six o'clock, Peggy's mother was once more alien and alone. It
was then that she would get up and leave her husband (why not, since he
left her?) and slip from Prior Street to Thurston Square; then that she
moved once more superbly in her superior circle. She was proud of her
circle. It was