this, for the nurse said at
once:

"I don't think you're quite up to it yet."

Gyp answered:

"Yes. Only, not for five minutes, please."

Her spirit had been very far away, she wanted time to get it back before
she saw him--time to know in some sort what she felt now; what this mite
lying beside her had done for her and him. The thought that it was his,
too--this tiny, helpless being--seemed unreal. No, it was not his! He
had not wanted it, and now that she had been through the torture it was
hers, not his--never his. The memory of the night when she first yielded
to the certainty that the child was coming, and he had come home drunk,
swooped on her, and made her shrink and shudder and put her arm round
her baby. It had not made any difference. Only--Back came the old
accusing thought, from which these last days she had been free: 'But
I married him--I chose to marry him. I can't get out of that!' And she
felt as if she must cry out to the nurse: "Keep him away; I don't
want to see him. Oh, please, I'm tired." She bit the words back. And
presently, with a very faint smile, said:

"Now, I'm ready."

She noticed first what clothes he had on--his newest suit, dark grey,
with little lighter lines--she had chosen it herself; that his tie was
in a bow, not a sailor's knot, and his hair brighter than usual--as
always just after being cut; and surely the hair was growing down
again in front of his ears. Then, gratefully, almost with emotion, she
realized that his lips were quivering, his whole face quivering. He came
in on tiptoe, stood looking at her a minute, then crossed very swiftly
to the bed, very swiftly knelt down, and, taking her hand, turned it
over and put his face to it. The bristles of his moustache tickled her
palm; his nose flattened itself against her fingers, and his lips kept
murmuring words into the hand, with the moist warm touch of his lips.
Gyp knew he was burying there all his remorse, perhaps the excesses he
had committed while she had been away from him, burying the fears he had
felt, and the emotion at seeing her so white and still. She felt that in
a minute he would raise a quite different face. And it flashed through
her: "If I loved him I wouldn't mind what he did--ever! Why don't I love
him? There's something loveable. Why don't I?"

He did raise his face; his eyes lighted on the baby, and he grinned.

"Look at this!" he said. "Is it possible? Oh, my Gyp, what a funny one!
Oh, oh, oh!" He