He looked at her and a shade, a tremor, of uneasiness passed over his face.
"I say," he said, "you don't think they're unhappy?"
(She smiled).
"—Without their mother?" He jerked it out with a visible effort.
"No. If they were I shouldn't be so uneasy."
"Come, you don't want them to be unhappy, do you?"
"No. I don't want anybody to be unhappy. That's why I think I'd better go."
"On their account?" he repeated, hopelessly adrift.
"Theirs, and their mother's."
"But it's on their account—and—their mother's—that we want you."