One night O'Connell came back disheartened. Try as he would, he
could not conceal it. He was getting to the end of his courage.
There was insufficient work at the shop he had been working in for
several weeks. He had been told he need not come again.

Angela, lying motionless and white, tried to comfort him and give
him heart.

She made up her mind that night. The next day she wrote to her
brother.

She could not bring herself to express one regret for what she had
done or said. On the contrary she made many references to her
happiness with the man she loved. She did write of the hardships
they were passing through. But they were only temporary. O'Connell
was so clever--so brilliant--he must win in the end. Only just now
she was ill. She needed help. She asked no gift--a loan--merely.
They would pay it back when the days of plenty came. She would not
ask even this were it not that she was not only ill, but the one
great wonderful thing in the world was to be vouchsafed her--
motherhood. In the name of her unborn baby she begged him to send an
immediate response.

She asked a neighbour to post the letter so that O'Connell would not
know of her sacrifice. She waited anxiously for a reply.

Some considerable time afterwards--on the eve of her travail and
when things with O'Connell were at their worst--the answer came by
cable.