'It will cost a great deal--' said Winifred.

'We can't think of cost, if the child's leg is in danger--or even her
life. No use speaking of cost,' said the elder man impatiently.

And so it was. Poor Joyce, stretched out on a bed in the big closed
motor-car--the mother sitting by her head, the grandfather in his short
grey beard and a bowler hat, sitting by her feet, thick, and implacable
in his responsibility--they rolled slowly away from Crockham, and from
Egbert who stood there bareheaded and a little ignominious, left behind.
He was to shut up the house and bring the rest of the family back to
town, by train, the next day.

Followed a dark and bitter time. The poor child. The poor, poor child,
how she suffered, an agony and a long crucifixion in that nursing home.
It was a bitter six weeks which changed the soul of Winifred for ever. As
she sat by the bed of her poor, tortured little child, tortured with the
agony of the knee, and the still worse agony of these diabolic, but
perhaps necessary modern treatments, she felt her heart killed and going
cold in her breast. Her little Joyce, her frail, brave, wonderful, little
Joyce, frail and small and pale as a white flower! Ah, how had she,
Winifred, dared to be so wicked, so wicked, so careless, so sensual.

'Let my heart die! Let my woman's heart of flesh die! Saviour, let my
heart die. And save my child. Let my heart die from the world and from
the flesh. Oh, destroy my heart that is so wayward. Let my heart of pride
die. Let my heart die.'

So she prayed beside the bed of her child. And like the Mother with the