He held her tightly, still looking down as he said, 'She is a dancer, mother, a little dancer. It was in London, last summer. A lot of us came up from Aldershot together. She was in the chorus of one of those musical comedies. Mother, you can never understand. But it wasn't just low and vulgar. She was so lovely,--so very young,--with the most wonderful golden hair and the sweetest eyes.--I don't know.--I simply went off my head when I saw her. We all had supper together afterwards. Toppie knew one of the other girls, and Dollie was there. That's her name--Dollie Vaughan--her stage name. Her real name was Byles. Her people, I think, were little tradespeople, and she'd lost her father and mother, and an aunt had been very unkind. She told me all about it that night. Mother, please believe just this: it wasn't only the obvious thing.--I know I can't explain. But you remember, when we read _War and Peace_,'--his broken voice groped for the analogy,--'you remember Natacha, when she falls in love with Anatole, and nothing that was real before seems real, and she is ready for anything. It was like that. It was all fairyland, like that. No one thought it wrong. It didn't seem wrong. Everything went together.' She had gathered his hand closely in hers and she sat there, quiet, looking at her hopes lying slain before her. Her Jack. The wife who was, perhaps, to have been his. The children that she, perhaps, should have seen. All dead. The future blotted out. Only this wraith-like present; only this moment of decision; Jack and his desperate need the only real things left. And after a moment, for his laboring breath had failed, she said, 'Yes, dear?' and smiled at him. He covered his face with his hands. 'Mother, I've ruined your life.' He had, of course, in ruining his own; yet even at that moment of wreckage she was able to remember, if not to feel, that life could mend from terrible wounds, could marvelously grow from compromises and defeats. 'No, dearest, no,' she said. 'While I have you, nothing is ruined. We shall see what can be done. Go on. Tell me the rest.' He put out his hand to hers again and sat now a little turned away from her, speaking on in his deadened, bitter voice. 'There wasn't any glamour after that first time. I only saw her once or twice again. I was awfully sorry and ashamed over the whole thing. Her company left London, on tour, and then the war came, and I simply forgot all about her. And the other day, over there, I had a letter from her. She was in terrible trouble. She was ill and had no money, and no work. And she was going to have a child--my child; and she begged me to send her a little money to help her through, or she didn't know what would become of her.'