He held out his hand. She took it and gripped it fast, every fibre of her athrill with the dear touch. Her whole soul seemed for the second to crave for him, for his presence always. And he was going away, out of her life for ever. For she was wiser than he was. She knew that her talk of continued friendship was a sham; one of the many baits she laid so often to get her own way. Ah, how weary she was of cutting and contriving Dame Nature's plain, honest web! Well, she would have to do it no longer; it would be another's task. But there was one thing he had said which was not to be endured, which could not be allowed to pass.
"Good-bye," she said, "and don't please feel like a scoundrel. You never did a better deed in your life. You have done your duty like an honest gentleman, and--and I'm proud of you!"
"That's something, anyhow," he said, and was gone.
She sat down and began stitching away at a little gown she was making. It had to be finished that night, for the christening of the infant for whom it had been bespoken was on the morrow. And the task soothed her. For the more ordinary parts she had apprentices during the day who worked downstairs, but all the distinctive features of the marvellously delicate little garments came from her own clever fingers. That evening, as she worked away at a tiny wreath of snowdrops for another woman's child, every atom of her went out in unavailing regret for the little life that had gone to save her own. She was not worth it--nothing was worth it. Those men--father and son--might say "I am sorry the little chap died!" but did they, could they, would they, realise what it meant to a woman that something very precious, something which she was bound to protect, for which she ought to have given her heart's blood, had given her its own instead?
Well, she had paid for it since to the uttermost farthing. She had no illusions. Marmaduke had gone out of her life for ever.
Not entirely, however, for at Christmas time one of his long breezy letters came to her--for Marmaduke was a great letter-writer--telling her about all her old friends in the neighbourhood; a charming, cheerful epistle, full of awed wonder at the extreme stoutness and sanctity of "stepmamma" and the rigorous respectability of Penelope.