"Don't make her cry again, Mr. Kerr, and you may come in at eight."

As she went out with the cup of steaming food, she looked back to ask:

"Did you see the baby?"

"Don't mention the damned baby!" said Osborn with deep anger.

"The baby can't help it," answered the nurse, going out.

Osborn sat there thinking. No! The baby couldn't help it. That was very true. Losing his hostility to this fragment of life, he began to feel a faint curiosity. What was it like?

At eight o'clock he would look at the baby.

The nurse looked out of the bedroom door just before eight and signalled to him. This time she did not leave them alone, though she busied herself at the other side of the room, with her back to them, because she knew how shy these young things were. And this time Marie looked at Osborn with the ghost of a smile, barely more than a tremor of the lips. He bent down.

She whispered into his ear: "I don't--think--I could ever--go--through it--again."

"Never again, my sweetheart," he whispered back.

She made a motion with her lips; he kissed them gently. "Good night,"

he murmured, "sleep well, poor little angel."

"She'll sleep," said the nurse unexpectedly, from near the fire. She was tending the baby now, and Osborn looked across at it in the subdued light. What a little mottled pink thing! What creases! What insignificance to have brought about all this!

"Look at your bonnie baby, Mr. Kerr," said the nurse, holding the mite aloft.

"Is that a bonnie baby?" said Osborn sourly.

"Osborn," whispered Marie from the bed, "he's a beautiful baby!"

Osborn looked down, startled, and saw in her wan face some glimmer of an unknown thing. She--_she_--was pleased with the baby! _She_ admired and loved it!

He went out astonished.

The next morning, still flat on her pillows, she was nursing the baby with a smile on her mouth. Under her pink cap the faintest colour bloomed in her cheek; she asked for a fresh pink ribbon for her nightgown; she had slept peacefully. Some flowers were sent very early, with congratulations. They were from Rokeby and from Julia, and were arranged near her bed as she lay with this wonderful toy, this little new pet, Osborn's son, beside her. She had emerged out of her black darkness into light.

CHAPTER IX

PROBLEMS

Throughout Marie's convalescence there were things to buy; little things, but endless; to a woman who has suffered so greatly for their mutual joy can a man deny anything? The husband of a year cannot.

Every day, before he went to his work--he was third salesman to one of the best Light Car Companies in town--Osborn held consultation, over the breakfast table, with the nurse. He used to say, as bravely and carelessly as if he felt no pinch at his pocket, "Is there anything you want to-day, Nurse?" And there was always something, a lotion, or a powder, or a new sponge, or a cake of a particular soap. The nurse had no compunction in adding: "If you _do_ see a few nice grapes, or a really tender chicken, Mr. Kerr, I believe she might fancy them."

Osborn's lunches, during that month, grew lighter and lighter; they almost ceased.

Mrs. Ambler proved expensive in the kitchen, breaking for the while through her economical rule, feeling nothing too good for her poor child. She used to remind Osborn every time they met, by word, or look, or expressive sigh, how Marie had suffered. He felt oppressed, overridden and tired; but he was very obedient beneath the rule of the women.

He had to wait upon himself a good deal; sometimes he brought a chop for dinner home in his pocket and grilled it himself.

He slept in the room relegated to him as dressing-room or to a chance visitor, as occasion might arise; it looked forlorn and dusty, and the toilet covers wanted changing.

He longed to have Marie about again, blithe and pretty; and to be rid of this pack. He thought of his mother-in-law and the nurse as a pack.

Several times he succumbed to dining with Rokeby at his club, but he always hurried home in time to say good night to Marie _before_ she fell asleep.

When the baby was nearly three weeks old, he was called upon to lift his wife out of bed for the first time, and to put her in an armchair, which had been prepared with pillows and a rug, by the purring gas-fire. She was so eager to be moved, and he so eager to have her to himself for just a little, that he begged permission to take her into another room for awhile, but the nurse would have none of it, and she was right, for Marie was white and tired when she had sat in the chair for only ten minutes. That staggered Osborn afresh. He was speechlessly sorry for her, and sat by her holding her hand, watching her concernedly, until she asked to be put back into bed again. That was on a Sunday.

The Sunday marked his memory. It disappointed him so bitterly to find that Marie was not stronger. After all the chickens and grapes, and doctors' and nurses' fees, she was not strong; and what could he do more for her? He was not a rich man. After the drain of all this they must live more steadily even than before; he could not waft her _and_ the baby away to some warm south-coast resort to finish her convalescence; he could not take her for long motoring week-ends.

In a week the nurse would go. Would Marie be ready for her to go? If not, could Osborn keep her longer?

He knew he could not. There was only a sum of twelve or thirteen pounds left from the twenty which had represented the nest-egg which he had when he married; five of those pounds the doctor would take; six of them the nurse would take. He tried to arrange the disposal of his salary afresh, and could do no more than cut down his weekly expenditure of ten shillings to five.

But Marie and the baby were worth it all--if only he could get them alone again.

A week after that the nurse left and Osborn came back to Marie's room.

He looked forward to it; part of the dreadfulness of the past month had been their separation; now they were to be alone again, without that anarchic and despotic pack. On the morning, before he left, he wished the nurse good-bye with a false heartiness and handed her, breezily, a cheque. He would see her no more, God be thanked! When he came home that evening his place would be his own, his wife his own, the baby their own; there would be no stranger intruding upon their snug intimacy.

Osborn's heart was light when, at six o'clock, he put his latchkey into the keyhole and entered; he gave the long, low coo-ee which recalled old glad days, and Marie emerged from the kitchen, finger on mouth.

"Hush, don't wake him!"

"Is he in bed?"

"Nurse stayed to put him to bed before she left."

Osborn embraced her. "We're alone at last, hurrah!"

"Will you help me?" said Marie. "I'm so tired."

"Course I'll help you, little dear," he replied tenderly. "We'll do everything together, just as we used to."

"Osborn," said Marie suddenly, "that's the whole secret of married life, to do everything together, nice things and nasty things."

"Of course, darling. We do, don't we?"

"I suppose we do," she answered doubtfully; "at least there are some things a man doesn't share because he can't."

Her eyes dilated, and he guessed what she was thinking of. "I know, sweetest, I know," he said hastily, "but try not to remember it; it's all over and done with; and, Marie, I suffered, too."

She remembered, then, the tears they had shed together on the night of the baby's birth, and her heart was soft.

The night seemed punctuated to Osborn by the crying of the baby. It woke at regular hours, as if it could read some clock in the darkness; and quickly as, it seemed to him, he must have roused, Marie had wakened quicker, and was hushing the child. He could hear her soft whispers through the darkness, in the subsequent silences during which he guessed, with a thrill of anxious awe, that she was feeding it; frail as she was, she gave of what strength she had to the baby. Never had Marie seemed more wonderful to Osborn.