"Where are you going, ma'am?" asked tearful Mrs Trivett, who had followed her upstairs.
"To Mr Devitt. He's kind at heart. I know, if I can see him, he'll give me what I want."
"But will he see you?"
"I'll see to that. Promise you won't leave baby while I'm gone."
Mavis took a last look of her darling as she went out of the door. She then let herself out and sped in the direction of the Bathminster Road. She scarcely knew, she did not care, what she should say when she came face to face with Devitt. She had almost forgotten that he had been informed of her secret. All she knew was that she was in peril of losing her sick child, and that she was fighting for its possession with the weapons that came handiest. Nothing else in the world was of the smallest account. She also dimly realised that she was fighting for her lover's approval, to whom she would soon have to render an account of her stewardship to his son. This gave edge to her determination. She knocked at the door of the brightly lit, pretentious-looking house in the Bathminster Road.
"I want to see Mr Devitt privately," she told the fat butler who opened the door.
He would have shown her into a room, but she preferred to wait in the hall, which, just now, was littered with trunks.
"I think he's with Mr Harold," said the man, as he walked to a door at the further end of the hall.
The trunk labels were written in a firm, bold hand, which caught Mavis's eye. "Harold Devitt, Esq., Homeleigh, Swanage, Dorset," was the apparent destination of the luggage.
"Mr Devitt must be in the drawing-room," said Hayter, as he reappeared to walk up the stairs.