And meanwhile she waited, shivering in the fog, and her heart went out in passionate longing to the man who was faithless to her, who neglected her, who squandered her earnings, and was slowly bringing her to the grave. Wilson had said: “It’s past crediting what some women’ll look over in the man they love!”
But the minutes flew fast and grew into a long hour, and there was no sign of Jerry, and at last the wife had to remember the mother and go home to the babes.
“No, dear, not yet. You go to sleep,” said the mother,
“But ye won’t fret, mother, will you?” said the child again.
“Oh, no, dear, I won’t fret,” promised the poor soul, though her voice would have given the lie to her words had the child not been dulled with healthy weariness.
The little one turned round in bed, and the mother sat herself by the window wrapping her shawl more closely around her.
But she did not keep her promise—she did fret. She sat and rocked herself to and fro, and thought of all she might have done which she had not done, and of all she had done that would have best been left undone.
Yes, she had worried him; she had been too sharp, too fretful. She had not been able to make life gay for him—there were always so many cares; and he hated cares and loved gaiety.
Only that very morning she had found fault with him, and been cross to him before strangers; any man would hate that, and he hated it more than most. Why had she been so foolish? No wonder he had gone to the Harbour and to “them ’orrid girls.” It was her own fault. But when he came home, she would not speak a word of reproach. He should just sleep it off and not a word said. And she would get credit somehow to get him nice dinners. If only it weren’t that nasty old Miss Hearn to whom the rent was due!
And so she sat and planned and waited, and the lamp burned low, but he did not come.
Sleep won on her after her hard day’s work and she dozed off, and as she dozed she thought she was in the steep lane again where her Jerry had courted her first, and she felt the scent of pines after a hot day sweet in her nostrils, and the breath of kisses sweeter still upon her lips, and the soft tenderness of the warm moonlight slowly persuading her happy senses.