England was calling; and he seemed deaf to every other voice. She seemed to have gone clean out of his life; but the children had not—she noticed it with a pang of jealousy and a throb of hope. For each of the remaining nights after dark, he went round their cots. She was not to know anything about that, she could see, from the stealthy way in which he stole upstairs when her back was supposed to be turned. But the noises in the room overhead, the murmur of his voice, the shuffling of his feet as he got up from the bedsides betrayed his every action.
On the third night, as he rejoined her, she rose before him in the dusk, laying down her work.
"Anything for me too, Ern," she asked humbly—"the mother of em?"
"What d'you mean?" he asked almost fiercely.
"D'you want me, Ern?"
He turned his back on her with an indifference that hurt far more than any brutality, because it signified so plainly that he did not care.
"You're all right," he said enigmatically, and went out.
He could ask anything of her now, and she would give him all, how gladly! But he asked nothing.
In another way, too, he was torturing her. It was clear to her that he meant to do his duty by her and the children—to the last ounce; and nothing more. He cared for their material wants as he had never done before. All his spare moments he spent handying about the house, hammer in hand, nails in mouth, doing little jobs he had long promised to do and had forgotten; putting little Ned's mail-cart to rights, screwing on a handle, setting a loose slate. She followed him about with wistful eyes, holding the hammer, steadying the ladder, and receiving in return a few off-hand words of thanks. She did not want words: she wanted him—himself.
Then news came through, and he was straightway full of mystery and bustle.