Edith smiled. Peace, in that noisy house next door, with children and kittens and puppies everywhere! And yet it would be peace, after all, a peace of the soul, the peace of a good man's love. After a time, too, there might come another peace, the peace of those tired women in the ward, rocking. “If you want me, I'll marry you,” she said, very simply. “I'll be a good wife, Joe. And I want children. I want the right to have them.” He never noticed that the kiss she gave him, over the sleeping baby, was slightly tinged with granulated sugar. CHAPTER LI OLD Anthony's body had been brought home, and lay in state in his great bed. There had been a bad hour; death seems so strangely to erase faults and leave virtues. Something strong and vital had gone from the house, and the servants moved about with cautious, noiseless steps. In Grace's boudoir, Howard was sitting, his arms around his wife, telling her the story of the day. At dawn he had notified her by telephone of Akers' murder. “Shall I tell Lily?” she had asked, trembling. “Do you want to wait until I get back?” “I don't know how she will take it, Howard. I wish you could be here, anyhow.” But then had come the battle and his father's death, and in the end it was Willy Cameron who told her. He had brought back all that was mortal of Anthony Cardew, and, having seen the melancholy procession up the stairs, had stood in the hall, hating to intrude but hoping to be useful. Howard found him there, a strange, disheveled figure, bearing the scars of battle, and held out his hand. “It's hard to thank you, Cameron,” he said; “you seem to be always about when we need help. And”--he paused--“we seem to have needed it considerably lately.” Willy Cameron flushed. “I feel rather like a meddler, sir.” “Better go up and wash,” Howard said. “I'll go up with you.” It happened, therefore, that it was in Howard Cardew's opulent dressing-room that Howard first spoke to Willy Cameron of Akers' death, pacing the floor as he did so. “I haven't told her, Cameron.” He was anxious and puzzled. “She'll have to be told soon, of course. I don't know anything about women. I don't know how she'll take it.” “She has a great deal of courage. It will be a shock, but not a grief. But I have been thinking--” Willy Cameron hesitated. “She must not feel any remorse,” he went on. “She must not feel that she contributed to it in any way. If you can make that clear to her--” “Are you sure she did not?” “It isn't facts that matter now. We can't help those. And no one can tell what actually led to his change of heart. It is what she is to think the rest of her life.” Howard nodded. “I wish you would tell her,” he said. “I'm a blundering fool when it comes to her. I suppose I care too much.” He caught rather an odd look in Willy Cameron's face at that, and pondered over it later. “I will tell her, if you wish.”