The shadow of Mrs. Temple’s cap quivered on the wall. The thought of the little arm in his, the other days, which this simple touch brought back, was not sweet but terrible to her. A film floated before her eyes, and something choking and intolerable rose in her throat. “I do not suppose,” she said hastily, “that a girl brought up like that can mind as one thinks.” The Captain shook his head. “I wish you knew her better,” he said, with that soft answer which turns away irritation. The servant-maid came in with the tray at this moment, and Mrs. Temple began to pour out the tea. She was a little tired, having had many things to do that day, and it occurred to her suddenly that to lean back in her easy-chair as the Captain was doing, and to have her cup of tea brought to her, would be sweet. To have some one to wait upon her tenderly and read her wishes in her eyes, and divine her thoughts before they came to her lips, that would be sweet. But could anyone do that except a child, could anything but love do it, and that sacred influence which is in the blood, the same blood running in the different veins of parent and child? These thoughts went through her mind without anybody being the wiser. She gave her husband his tea, and sat down in her turn to rest a little. There was nothing said in the still little room. The two together, did not they know all each other’s thoughts and wishes and recollections? They were old, and what could happen to them except the going out to the Abbey, the coming in to tea? But if there had been three instead of two--and one young, with all a dawning world before her feet--everything would have borne a very different aspect. Ah! Mrs. Temple moved quickly, as she had the habit of doing when that recollection, always present to her mind, struck suddenly like a new blow. And here was a creature, helpless, forlorn, without a mother to fly to. The mother who had no child stood doubtful between earth and heaven, asking, speechless, what she was to do: pass by on the other side as if there was no mother in her? or pardon God for taking her child, and hold out her hand to His? She did not know what to do. Things were not easy for her as for her husband. It was cruel of this girl even to live, to pass by a poor woman’s windows who had lost her child; yet what was the woman to do when this creature who was living, who was an offence to her, was in trouble? Let her sink and never hold out a hand? But what then would the other girl in heaven think of her mother? Mrs. Temple was torn by this conflict of which she gave no sign, while perhaps the old Captain in his kind and simple heart, yearning over the young creature who was so helpless and desolate, was unjust to his wife and thought her less than kind.