As chance willed, the crumpled telegram had not fallen into the blazing wood fire, but had struck upon a log and dropped on its unkindled side. And chance willed that Mrs. Clavering should have noticed this. Women of her type are cynically unscrupulous. As soon as the hall was clear of men she picked up the telegram and read it. Her face, which when she was by herself was somewhat faded, grew a little grayer. She put the telegram in her pocket. Chance willed also that Thornton and Mrs. Clavering should find themselves alone for a long spell after dinner in the little withdrawing-room, where smoking was permitted. Most of the men were tired. One or two of the women had gone up to their rooms. The rest were playing billiards. Thornton was in gay spirits, talking recklessly, giving her openings for sarcasms, and then closing in upon her with a brutality. It was an amusing game. Suddenly she asked him irrelevantly: “When are you going back to London?” “You're a wise woman,” he replied, leaning back in his chair. “But what do you mean?” “I asked you a question--a simple one. Are you going to London to-morrow?” “No; why should I?--unless you are getting sentimental over me, and would prefer the illusion of my absence to the disenchantment of my bodily presence. If you mean it as a hint, of course I'll go.” “I do mean it as a hint,” she said with a hard kind of drawl. “I didn't know you were quite such an unreasoning brute. Hadn't it occurred to you that it was only common decency to go off and help bury your newborn child?” She rose, and gathering up her skirts, left him before he had time to recover. CHAPTER XXI. Thus it had happened with Clytie during Thornton's absence. There came a morning at the end of the Old Year when the snow and sleet dashing against the window could be dimly heard in the heavily curtained room, and Clytie feebly whispered: “Give me the child.” Gently they told her that the life had merely fluttered on the threshold and passed back into the silence whence it came. And she sank back on her pillows, struck to the heart with a dumb, hopeless heartsickness. Recovery was slow. Clytie lay for many days quite listless, the tears rolling down her cheeks, physical weakness aiding to make her feel a great self-pity. The long waiting, the fear, the pain, all had been counted as nothing if at the close there could have lain in her arms a little child--one whose touch would draw all pain from her heart, make her forget every sorrow. And the passionate child hunger, begotten of the pangs of maternity, woke within her and cried for satisfaction.