till the boat reached the creek's
mouth, and Majendie turned, and raised his cap to her; stood till the
white sail moved slowly up the river and disappeared, rounding the spit
of land.

Majendie, as he paced the deck and talked to his men of wind and weather,
turned casually, on his heel, to look at her where she stood alone in the
level immensity of the land. The world looked empty all around her.

And he was touched with a sudden poignant realisation of her life; its
sadness, its incompleteness, its isolation.

That was what he had brought her to.

CHAPTER XXIX

The rain cleared off, the mist lifted, and at nine o'clock it was a fine
day for Peggy's birthday. Even Scale, where it stretched its flat avenues
into the country, showed golden in the warm and brilliant air.

The household in Prior Street had been up early, making preparations for
the day. Peggy had waked before it was light, to feel her presents which
lay beside her on her bed; and, by the time Majendie's sail had passed
Fawlness Point, she was up and dressed, waiting for him.

Anne had to break it to her gently that perhaps he would not be home in
time for eight-o'clock breakfast. Then the child's mouth trembled, and
Anne comforted her, half-smiling and half-afraid.

"Ah, Peggy, Peggy," she said, as she rocked her against her breast, "What
shall I do with you? Your little heart is too big for your little body."

Anne's terror had not left her in three years. It was always with her
now. The child was bound to suffer. She was a little mass of throbbing
nerves, of trembling emotions.

Yet Anne herself was happier. The three years had passed smoothly over
her. Her motherhood had laid its fine, soft, finishing touch upon her.
Her face, her body, had rounded and ripened, year after slow year, to an
abiding beauty, born of her tenderness. At thirty-five Anne Majendie had
reached the perfect moment of her physical maturity.

Her mind was no longer harassed by anxiety about her husband. He seemed
to have settled down. He had ceased to be uncertain in his temper, by
turns irritable and depressed. He had parted with the heaviness which had
once roused her aversion, and had recovered his personal distinction, the
slender refinement of his youth. She rejoiced in his well-being. She
attributed it, partly to his open-air habits, partly to the spiritual
growth begun in him at the time of his sister's death.

She desired no change in their relations,