_ The mists that had gathered round Rickie seemed to be breaking.
He had found light neither in work for which he was unfitted nor
in a woman who had ceased to respect him, and whom he was ceasing
to love. Though he called himself fickle and took all the blame
of their marriage on his own shoulders, there remained in Agnes
certain terrible faults of heart and head, and no self-reproach
would diminish them. The glamour of wedlock had faded; indeed, he
saw now that it had faded even before wedlock, and that during
the final months he had shut his eyes and pretended it was still
there. But now the mists were breaking.
That November the supreme event approached. He saw it with
Nature's eyes. It dawned on him, as on Ansell, that personal
love and marriage only cover one side of the shield, and that on
the other is graven the epic of birth. In the midst of lessons he
would grow dreamy, as one who spies a new symbol for the
universe, a fresh circle within the square. Within the square
shall be a circle, within the circle another square, until the
visual eye is baffled. Here is meaning of a kind. His mother had
forgotten herself in him. He would forget himself in his son.
He was at his duties when the news arrived--taking preparation.
Boys are marvellous creatures. Perhaps they will sink below the
brutes; perhaps they will attain to a woman's tenderness. Though
they despised Rickie, and had suffered under Agnes's meanness,
their one thought this term was to be gentle and to give no
trouble.
"Rickie--one moment--"
His face grew ashen. He followed Herbert into the passage,
closing the door of the preparation room behind him. "Oh, is she
safe?" he whispered.
"Yes, yes," said Herbert; but there sounded in his answer a
sombre hostile note.
"Our boy?"
"Girl--a girl, dear Rickie; a little daughter. She--she is in many
ways a healthy child. She will live--oh yes." A flash of horror
passed over his face. He hurried into the preparation room,
lifted the lid of his desk, glanced mechanically at the boys, and
came out again.
Mrs. Lewin appeared through the door that led into their own part
of the house.
"Both going on well!" she cried; but her voice also was grave,
exasperated.
"What is it?" he gasped. "It's something you daren't tell me."
"Only this--stuttered Herbert. "You mustn't mind when you see--
she's lame."
Mrs. Lewin disappeared. "Lame! but not as lame as I am?"
"Oh, my dear boy, worse. Don't--oh, be a man in this. Come away
from the preparation room. Remember she'll live--in many ways
healthy--only just this one defect."
The horror of that week never passed away from him. To the end of
his life he remembered the excuses--the consolations that the
child would live; suffered very little, if at all; would walk
with crutches; would certainly live. God was more merciful. A
window was opened too wide on a draughty day--after a short,
painless illness his daughter died. But the lesson he had learnt
so glibly at Cambridge should be heeded now; no child should ever
be born to him again. _