and rigidity of his views was a manifestation of weakness, had he but
realised it--he was already looking for someone with whom to share the
blame for his lapse from the Vallincourt standard of conduct, and in
that handful of wayward charm, red lips, and soft, beguiling eyes which
was Diane he found what he sought.



Again the room door opened. This time, instead of putting a longed-for
end to a blank period of suspense, the little quiet clicking of the
latch cut almost aggressively across the conflict of Hugh's thoughts. He
turned round irritably.

"What is it?" he demanded.

A uniformed nurse was standing in the doorway. At the sound of his
curtly-spoken question she glanced at him with a certain contemplative
curiosity in her eyes. They might have held surprise as well as
curiosity had she not lately stood beside that huge, canopied bed
upstairs, listening pitifully to a woman's secret fears and longings,
unveiled in the delirium of pain.

"I know you sometimes wish you hadn't married me. . . . I'm not good
enough. And Catherine hates me. Yes, she does, she does! And she'll make
you hate me too! But you won't hate me when my baby comes, will you,
Hugh? You want a little son . . . a little son . . ."

Nurse Maynard could hear again the weary, complaining voice, trailing
off at last in the silence of exhaustion, and an impulse of indignation
added a sharp edge to her tone as she responded to Hugh's query.