Had there ever been any shadow of a division between Evie and myself, which there had not, it must have vanished now. I did not attempt to conceal from myself that her gifts did not extend in all directions equally. Socially expert in Pepper's sense, for example, she could hardly yet be expected to be, and I should have been unreasonable to have reproached her for not grasping the intricate problems that, if the truth must be told, frequently filled Pepper and myself with perplexity. But these things are independent of deep humanity, and by as much as she fell short in them she was richly dowered in other ways. It was still the love of a woman I wanted, not the semblance of a masculine friendship; and I had it, and was glad at the thought of my rich possession. Often, for pure emotion, I caught her in my arms when I saw her, rejoicing yet timorous before that which was presently to come to pass; and whether it was a pallor that sometimes crossed her face, or a sudden glow as of some warm and Venetian underpainting or else a smiling, happy lassitude infinitely moving in its appeal, all spoke of the pledge that had been given and taken between us.

Quite past telling was the peace this pledge brought to me. I was, after all, to begin anew. Despite Life's mauling of my hapless self, here was a tiny white leaf preparing for the writing of a record that should supersede and obliterate my own. Deeper things than men know were seeing to that ushering, and by nothing less miraculous than a birth was I going to be delivered from the body of that haggard death. Often, as I seemed to be busily writing at our small folding table, I quite lost myself in the contemplation of this coming manumission; and day by day, looking out over Waterloo Place and the Mall, I conjured up her image—resting while Aunt Angela (who now came up from Woburn Place almost daily) dusted or swept or washed up, taking her easy walks on the Heath, sewing (though not now for herself), or doing such light work as would not tire her. Fortunately, the Social Question next door had reached the crisis of over-production in the beaten-copper market; a glut had supervened; and the making of the wooden bowls and carved porridge-sticks that are designed for oppressed serfs and sold at a high price to the amateurs of the Difficult Life, caused less disturbance to our panels and pictures. The whooping child too had gone.

Aunt Angela had bought Evie a deep wicker basket lined with pale blue, and with the greatest circumspection I delayed to fill this basket too quickly. We talked for a week before making a purchase, and, in one case, for quite three weeks. This was when I bought, at a shop near Great Turnstile, what Evie called a "jangle"—a beautiful Jacobean coral mounted in silver, with many silver bells and a faint piping whistle at one end. Both as I entered the shop and left it again a grey nightmare tried to fasten itself upon me, of a woman who had forgotten where she lived, walking the Fields round the corner, alone at night; but I shook the horror off.... Even down to such details did I keep Evie from fancies—for she had fancies, the ousting of which was a matter for diversion rather than argument. One of these fancies was that she now wanted to see Miriam Levey. Another was that she did not want, just then at any rate, to see Louie Causton.

For as it chanced, Louie came the nearest (though with a nearness sad enough) to a married woman of anybody she happened at present to know; this, of course, largely as a result of my own exclusive attitude. Aunt Angela, by virtue of George and her other experiences, knew as much as ten married women, and that was frequently precisely the difficulty. Certain charwomen, I gathered, inured to immoderate families, gave Evie the benefit of their advice now and then, but that was about all. And it was one evening as I cast about for an opening to introduce Louie's name that Evie herself said once more that she would like to see Miss Levey.

"Certainly," I said, with a readiness that was only the result of seeing no way out of it this time. "As long as she won't tire you."

"I won't let her do that," Evie promised.

"All right," I said.... "And by the way"—I put this as if it had just occurred to me—"should you care to have Louie Causton up if Billy knows where to find her?"

"Yes, I should some time—but not just now, dear. You'll tell Miriam, then?"

"Yes."

I had promised it before I remembered something that might have made me less ready to promise it. It was now the beginning of October. We had to take our holidays in rotation at the F.B.C.; for a fortnight I had been working late in order that Whitlock might take his; and next on the list in our department was Miss Levey. Grumbling that it was almost too late to take a holiday at all, she was going away for a week-end only. Instantly, I saw what that meant....

The next day I capitulated to her as gracefully as I could.

"You'll be able to have a really satisfactory visit now, a whole day," I said. "It would only have been a couple of hours before."

"I'll take such good care of her!" she purred.

"I am sure you will," I said conciliatingly....

Three days later Miss Levey was up at Verandah Cottage. She was up there the next day also. Although she had always gone by the time I returned at night, she was up several times after that.

Well, it couldn't be helped ... and I was going to tell you, not about Miriam Levey, but about my happiness and Evie's.

Today, in my house in Iddesleigh Gate, there are many things thrust into dark corners that will ever occupy odd corners of my heart. They are the pieces of furniture from that poky old place in the Vale of Health. The people of my household tell me they are shabby, but as I never see them divorced from a hundred gentle associations, their shabbiness matters nothing to me. In the children's day-nursery there is the old shop-damaged couch from the Tottenham Court Road cellar. Its pegamoid is frayed and its springs broken, but Evie lay on it before those destructive little hands came into being. She lay on it with her legs wrapped in an old, faded, mignonette-coloured Paisley shawl—for presently the days were shortening, we had started fires, and Verandah Cottage was a Cave of the Winds for draughts; and my housekeeper had a bad five minutes only the other day when that shawl nearly went out of the house with the bottles and crates and old rags. The bookshelves Evie used to dust and polish still serve me; and quite a number of smaller things, including that first wicker basket into which the "jangle" was put (Evie keeps that) carry my mind back in a twinkling to that early time.

Evie had her little jokes about our unborn mite. Still further to repair the slight on Hampton Court of our Greenwich honeymoon, the infant at one time was to be called "Hampton," but as she had ten different names for it each week, a name more or less didn't matter. Its eyes were to be so-and-so—the colour also varied day by day. If a boy, it was to be of my own bone and stature; if a girl, less. I used to joke with her when, seeing her brooding and gently smiling, I pretended to discover these and a hundred other patterns and specifications in her eyes; but, however lovely these imaginings were, they were no lovelier than herself. Though the days now seemed less long, the little Élans with which she ran to me when she heard my step at night were a passionate rendering of herself far greater than before; and I will end this part of my tale with the first time, the very first, I heard her sing.

She had gone into the bedroom that night, and I had heard her moving about; and then there had stolen out low contralto notes that might have belonged to somebody else, so new were they to me.... She was happy. She was so happy that she was learning to sing. I stood listening, with tears gathering in my eyes and suddenly rolling down my cheeks....

She was happy....

She did not know why, a few moments later, with the face of one who hears joyful news, I pushed at the bedroom door and took her, half ready for bed as she was, into my arms.

Oh, to hear her, of her own accord, sing—and to know that soon her song would not more gently rock those feeble limbs and close those unknowing eyes than it now brought rest to my own weary frame and sleep to my own heavy eyes, weary with watching for the day that at last, at last was coming!