Little Peggy helped to make his misery more unendurable. She was always running to and fro between her father and her mother, with questions concerning kisses and other endearments, till he, too, wondered what she would make of it when she began to see. Everything conspired against him. Peggy's formidable innocence was re-enforced by the still more formidable innocence of her mother. Anne positively flaunted before him the spectacle of her maternal passion. She showered her tendernesses on the child, without measuring their effect on him, for whom she had none. She did not allow herself to wonder how he felt, when he sat there hungry, looking on, while the little creature, greedy for caresses, was given her fill of love. And when he was tortured by headache, she brought him an effervescing drink, and considered that she had done her duty. A worse headache than usual had smitten him one late Sunday afternoon in August. A Sunday afternoon that made (but for Majendie and his headache) a little sacred idyl, so golden was it, so holy and so happy, with Peggy trotting between her father's and mother's knees, and the prodigal, burning with penitence, upstairs in Edie's room, singing _Lead, Kindly Light_, in a heavenly tenor. Peggy tugged at Majendie's coat. "Sing, daddy, sing! Mummy, make daddy sing." "I can't make him sing, darling," said Anne, who was making soft eyes at Peggy, and curling her mouth into the shape it took when it sent kisses to her across the room. Instead of singing, Majendie, with his eyes on Anne, flung his arms round Peggy and lifted her up and covered her little face with kisses. The child lay across his knees with her head thrown back and her legs struggling, and laughed for terror and delight. Anne spoke with some austerity. "Put her down, Walter; I don't care for all this hugging and kissing. It excites the child." Peggy was put down. But when bed-time came she achieved an inimitable revenge. Anne had to pick her up from the floor to carry her to bed. At first Peggy refused to be carried; then she surrendered on conditions that brought the blood to her mother's face. From her mother's arms Peggy's head hung down as she struggled to say good-night a second time to daddy. He rose, and for a moment he and Anne stood linked together by the body of their child. And Peggy reiterated, "I'll be a good girl, mummy, if you'll kiss daddy." Anne raised her face to his and closed her eyes, and Majendie felt her soft lips touch his forehead without parting. That night, when he refused his supper, she looked up anxiously. "Are you not well, Walter?" "I've got a splitting headache." "You'd better take some anti-pyrine." "I'm damned if I'll take any anti-pyrine." "Well, don't, dear; but you needn't be so violent." "I beg your pardon." He cooled his hands against a jug of iced water, and pressed them to his forehead.