Than queening it at balls, she felt more in her element seated in a rather dingily furnished drawing-room, holding poor Agnes Ocock’s hand. Although it had struck five and the worst heat of the day was over, Agnes was still in her bedgown — she had been lying down with the headache, she said — nor could Mary persuade her to exchange this for bonnet and shawl, and drive out with her in the brougham that stood at the door.

“Another time, dearest, if you do not mind. To-day I have no fancy for it.”

Mary was shocked by the change the past six months had worked in her friend; and disagreeably impressed by the common-featured house in which she found her: it had no garden, but stood right on the dusty St. Kilda Parade. Agnes was growing very stout; her fine skin looked as creased as her robe, her cheek was netted with veins, her hair thin, under a cap set awry. Mary knew the rumours that were current; and her heart swelled with pity.

“Just as you like, dear. And how are the children? Are they in? May I see them?”

“Oh, yes, the children. Why . . . the truth is, dearest Mary, I haven’t . . . they are not with me. Henry thought . . . he thought . . .”

Agnes’s voice broke, and after a painful struggle to compose herself she hid her face in her hands.

Leaning forward Mary laid an arm round her shoulders. “Dearest Agnes, won’t you tell me your trouble? Is it the little one you . . . you lost, you are fretting over?”

And now there was no sound in the room but that of crying — and such crying! It seemed difficult to connect these heavy nerve-racking sobs with the lovely, happy little Agnes of former days. Holding her close, Mary let her weep unstintedly.

“Oh, Mary, Mary! I am the most miserable creature alive.”

Yes, it was the loss of the child that was breaking her heart . . . or rather the way in which she had lost it.

“It was the finest baby you ever saw, Mary — neither of the others could compare with it. They were all very well; but this one. . . . His tiny limbs were so round and smooth — it was like kissing velvet. And dimples everywhere. And he was born with a head of golden hair. I never knew Henry so pleased. He said such a child did me credit . . . and this used rather to make me wonder, Mary; for Baby wasn’t a bit like Henry . . . or like the other two. He took after my family and had blue eyes. But do you know who he reminded me of most of all? It was of Eddie, Mary . . . and through Eddie of Mr. Glendinning. When Eddie was born he used to lie in my lap, just as soft and fair . . . and sometimes I think I forgot, and imagined this baby WAS Eddie over again . . . and that made me still fonder of him; for one’s first is one’s first, love, no matter how many come after. And then . . . then . . . He was five months old, and beginning to try to grasp things and take notice — oh, such a happy babe! And then one morning, I wasn’t feeling well, Mary — the doctor said the nursing of such a hearty child was a great strain on me; then a giddy fit took me — I had been giving him the breast and got up to lay him down — nurse wasn’t there. I must have been dizzy with sitting so long stooped over him — and he was heavy for his age. I got up and came over faint all of a sudden — the doctor says so . . . and I tottered, Mary, and Baby fell — fell out of my arms . . . on his little head — I heard the thud — yes, the thud . . . but not a cry or a sound . . . nothing . . . nothing . . . he never cried again.”

“Oh, my poor Agnes! Oh, you poor, poor thing!”

Mary was weeping, too; the tears ran down her cheeks. But she made no attempt to palliate or console; did not speak of an accident for which it was impossible to blame yourself; or of God’s will, mysterious, inscrutable: she just grieved, with an intensity of feeling that made her one with the bereft. Things of this kind went too deep for words; were hurts from which there could be no recovery. Time might grow its moss over them . . . hide them from mortal sight . . . that was all.

As she drove home she reflected, pitifully, how strange it was that so soft and harmless a creature as Agnes should thus be singled out for some of life’s hardest blows. Agnes had so surely been born for happiness — and to make others happy. Misfortunes such as these ought to be kept for people of stronger, harder natures and with broader backs; who could suffer and still carry their heads high. Agnes was merely crushed to earth by them . . . like a poor little trampled flower.

But before she reached the house, a fearful suspicion crossed her mind.

Tilly nodded confirmingly.

“The plain English of it is, she was squiffy.”

And went on: “It was hushed up, my dear, you bet! — kept dark as the grave . . . doctor changed, etc. etc. They actually ‘ad the face to put it down to the nurse’s carelessness: said nurse being packed off at once, HANDSOMELY REMUNERATED, mind you, to hold ‘er tongue. An’ a mercy the child died; the doctor seemed to think it might ‘ave been soft, ‘ad it lived — after such a knock on the pate — and can you see Henry dragging the village idiot at ‘is heels? NEVER was a man in such a fury, Mary. Ugh! that white face with those little pitch-black eyes rolling round in it — it gave me the fair shakes to look at ’im. ‘Pon my word I believe, if ‘e’d dared, ‘e’d ‘ave slaughtered Agnes there and then. His child, HIS son! — you know the tune of it. ‘E’ll never forgive ‘er, mark my words he won’t! . . . the disgrace and all that — for of course everybody knew all about it and a good deal more. She was odd enough beforehand, never going anywhere. Now she’s taking the sea-air at St. Kilda, and, if you ask me, she’ll go on taking it . . . till Doomsday.”

“The very way to drive her to despair!” cried Mary; and burned.

Tilly shrugged. “It’s six of one and ‘alf a dozen of the other to my mind. I’d almost rather be put away to rot like a poisoned rat in a hole, than live under the whip of Mossieu Henry’s tongue — not to mention ‘is eye!”

“Agnes shall not die like a rat in a hole if I can help it.”

“Ah, but you can’t, my dear! . . . don’t make any mistake about that. You might as well try to bend a bar of iron as ‘Enry. — And I must say, Mary, it does sometimes seem a good deal of fuss to make over one small kid. She can ‘ave more for the asking.”

“TILLY!” Mary looked up from her sewing — the two women sat on the verandah of Tilly’s house in Ballarat, where Mary was visiting — in reproof and surprise at a speech so unlike her friend. It was not the first either; Tilly often wore a mopy, world-weary air nowadays, which did not sit naturally on her. “Each child that lives is just itself,” added Mary. “That’s why one loves it so.”

“Oh, well, I s’pose so. And as you know, love, I’d ‘ave ‘ad a dozen if I could. It wouldn’t ‘ave been one too many to fill this ’ouse.”

Mary believed she read the answer to the riddle. “Look here, Tilly, you’re lonely . . . that’s what’s the matter with you.”

And Tilly nodded, dumpily — again unlike herself.

“Fact is, Mary, I want something to DO. As long as dear old Pa lived, and I ‘ad the boys to look after, it was all right — I never knew what it was to be dull. But now . . . P’r’aps if they’d let me keep Tom and Johnny . . . or if I could groom my own ‘orses or ride ’em at the stakes . . . No, no, of course, I know it wouldn’t do — or be COMMY FAUT. It’s only my gab.”

“I wonder, Tilly,” said Mary, “I wonder if . . . have you never thought, dear, at times like these that . . . that perhaps you might some day marry again?” She put the question very tentatively, knowing Tilly’s robust contempt for the other sex.

But Tilly answered pat: “Why, that’s just what I ‘ave, Mary.”

“Oh!” said Mary. And to cover up her amazement, added: “I think it would be the very best thing that could happen.”

There followed a pause of some length. Mary did not know what to make of it. Tilly was humming and hawing: she fidgeted, coloured, shifted her eyes.

“Yes, my dear,” she said at length, in answer to Mary’s invitation to speak out: “I HAVE something on my chest . . . something I want to say to you, Mary, and yet don’t quite know, ‘ow. Fact is, I want you to do me a good turn, my dear. No, now just you wait a jiff, till you ‘ear what it is. Tell you what, Mary, I’ve found meself regularly down in the mouth of late — off me grub — and that sort of thing. No, Pa’s death has nothing whatever to do with it. I was getting on famously — right as a trivet — till . . . well, till I went to town — yes, that time, you know, to meet you and the doctor.” And as Mary still sat blank and uncomprehending, she blurted out: “Oh, well . . . till I saw . . . oh, YOU know! — till I met a CERTAIN PERSON again.”

“A certain person? Do you . . . Tilly! Oh, Tilly, do you REALLY? Purdy?”

Tilly nodded, heavily, gloomily, without the ghost of a smile. “Yes, it&r............