It had an air of missing someone very desolately.

Her face puckered suddenly and she was afraid she was going to cry again, before the children, but George stood in front of her, examining her minutely, and she straightened her lips.

“Mummie,” said George, “you hasn’t barfed poor baby.”

“You come and help Mummie do it,” she answered.

The procession of three went together into the bedroom, where the long-suffering baby had begun at last to protest.  The rumpled beds were as she and Osborn had left them, and the room looked soiled.  She inspected it for a moment before she turned to the business of bathing and dressing the baby.

Osborn’s late breakfast had made her late with the housework, but it didn’t matter.  There was no one to work for, cook for, keep up the standard for.  For a few minutes she thought thus.

George and the three-year-old gave her a great deal of help with the baby.  Their little fat, loving faces turned to her in the utmost worship and faith, and they trotted about, vying with each other in bringing her this and that for the infantile toilet.  And when it was accomplished, George took charge of the baby in the dining-room while his mother turned to the work which he was accustomed to seeing her do.  It was as if a great gift of sympathy for his mother in her hour of need had descended into his small heart.

Marie’s first task lay in the bedroom; when she had made her own bed, she turned to Osborn’s, and slowly and thoughtfully, one by one, she folded up the blankets for storage in the cupboard, dropped the sheets and pillow-case into the linen-basket without replacing them, and then spread the pink quilt over the unmade bed.

It would be a year before Osborn wanted it again. A year!

A few things of his lay about the room; only a few, for all that were good enough to pack she had packed.  She suddenly advanced upon these few trifles, swept them together, and pushed them out of sight in a drawer.  Again she looked around.  The room seemed expressive now only of her own entity; she was entirely alone in it.

She advanced to Osborn’s bed again, ripped off the quilt and mattress, and bent her strength to taking apart and folding the iron bedstead.  It was really a man’s task, but she accomplished it, and carried it into the dressing-room, where she put it against the wall, in a corner.  Again she returned to her own room and looked around.  Her bed, her toilet things, everything was hers.  True, the baby’s cot stood there; otherwise it was a virgin room.

Anger had muffled the grief in her heart.

“Well,” she said, “I have no husband.”

CHAPTER XVII

REVIVAL

She began to tidy the room automatically.  Through the partitioning wall she could hear George crooning like a guardian angel to his charge, and she smiled tenderly.  “The darling!” she thought.  His immature and uncomprehending sympathy warmed her chilled heart as nothing else could have done.  She had a great new sensation of leisure; there was all day to potter about in and no one to prepare for in the evening.