His ruddy face, still boyish in spite of his fifty years, blanched
slowly, and there came into his soft dark eyes the look he had worn at
Malvern Hill under the fire of the enemy.

At the sight Gabriella thrilled as she did when drums were beating and
armies were marching. "Oh, Cousin Jimmy, don't let her go back!" she
cried.

"I can't go back to him now! I can never, never go back to him again!"
intoned Jane with passionate energy.

"No, God bless her, she shan't go back," declared Jimmy, as profoundly
stirred as Gabriella.

"But the children? What will become of the children?" demanded Mrs.
Carr, not of Jimmy, but of the universe. Her helpless gaze, roving
wildly from face to face, and resting nowhere, was like the gaze of a
small animal caught in a trap. "If Jane separates the children from
their father what will people think of her?" she asked, still vainly
addressing Heaven.

"As long as she is right it doesn't matter what people think," retorted
Gabriella; but her protest, unlike her mother's, was directed to the
visible rather than to the invisible powers. The thought of Jane's
children--of the innocent souls so unaware of the awful predicament in
which they were placed that their bodies could be devouring bread and
damson preserves in the laundry. The poignant thought of these children
moved her more deeply than she had ever been moved before in her twenty
years. A passion for self-sacrifice rushed through her with the piercing
sweetness of religious ecstasy. Nothing like this had ever happened to