" There
was an uneven trembling in the voice. "It crept close to me; it wanted to
drink, it wanted to be warm." She hardened herself--"I did not love it;
its father was not my prince; I did not care for it; but it was so little."
She moved her hand. "They might have kissed it, one of them, before they
put it in. It never did any one any harm in all its little life. They
might have kissed it, one of them."
Gregory felt that some one was sobbing in the room.
Late on in the evening, when the shutter was closed and the lamp lighted,
and the rain-drops beat on the roof, he took the cloak from behind the door
and went away with it. On his way back he called at the village post-
office and brought back a letter. In the hall he stood reading the
address. How could he fail to know whose hand had written it? Had he not
long ago studied those characters on the torn fragments of paper in the old
parlour? A burning pain was at Gregory's heart. If now, now at the last,
one should come, should step in between! He carried the letter into the
bedroom and gave it to her. "Bring me the lamp nearer," she said. When
she had read it she asked for her desk.
Then Gregory sat down in the lamp-light on the other side of the curtain,
and heard the pencil move on the paper. When he looked round the curtain
she was lying on the pillow musing.
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