Presently he got up and looked behind the clock, and saw that the next feeding-time was due now. So he rang for Mrs. Adams, the landlady, and asked her if she would mind bringing Thomas's bottle. When Thomas had it, Peter stood and looked down upon him as he drank with ill-bred noises. "Gently, Thomas: you'll choke. You'll choke and die, I know you will. Then you'll be gone too. Everything goes, Thomas. Everything I touch breaks; everything I try to do fails. That's because I'm such an ass, I suppose. I did think I could perhaps make one little unlucky girl decently happy; but I couldn't, you see. So she's gone after light and warmth, and she'll--she'll break her heart in a year, and it'll be my fault. Follow her? No, I shan't do that. I shouldn't find her, and if I did what would be the use? If she must go, she must; she was only eating her heart out here; and perhaps it's better to break one's heart on something than eat it out in emptiness. No, it isn't better in this case. Anything in the world would have been better than this; that she should have gone with that--that person. Yet thus it is. And they'll all set on her and speak against her, and I shall have to bear it. You and I will have to bear it together, Thomas.... I suppose I ought to be angry. I ought to want to go after them, to the end of the world or wherever they've gone and kill him and bring her back. But I can't. I should fail in that too. I'm tired of trying to do things; simply horribly tired of it, Thomas." He sat down on the rug with Thomas in his arms; and there, an hour later, Peggy found them. She swung in breezily, crying, "Oh, Peter, all alone in the dark? Where's Rhoda? Why, the silly children haven't had their tea!" she added, looking at the unused cups on the tea-table. Peter looked up vaguely. "Oh, tea. I forgot. I don't think I want any tea to-day. And Thomas has had his. And Rhoda's gone. It's no good not telling you--is it?--because you'll find out. She's gone away. It's been my fault entirely; I didn't make her happy, you see. And she's written out a list of the times Thomas has to feed at. I suppose Mrs. Adams will do that if I ask her, and generally look after him when I'm out." Peggy stood aghast before him for a moment, staring, then collapsed, breathless, on the sofa, crying, with even more r's than usual. "_Peter!_... Why, she's gone and rrun off with that toad, that rreptile man! Oh, I know it, so it's not a bit of use your trying to keep it from me." "Very well," said Peter; "I suppose it's not." "Oh, the little fool, the little, silly, wicked fool! But if ever a little fool got her rich deserts without needing to wait for purgatory, that one'll be Rhoda.... Oh, Peter, be more excited and angry! Why aren't you stamping up and down and vowing vengeance, instead of sitting on the hearth saying, 'Rhoda's gone,' as if it was the kitten?" "I'm sorry, Peggy." Peter sighed a little. "I'm nursing Thomas, you see."