"I always mean what I say. I haven't said my prayers yet."
"And when you have said them?"
She had turned out the lamp, so that she might not see his unhappy face. She did not see it; she only saw her spiritual vision destroyed and scattered, and the havoc of dreams, resurgent, profaning heavenly sleep.
"Please," she whispered, "please, if you love me, leave me to myself."
He left her; and her heart turned after him as he went, and blessed him.
"He is good, after all," her heart said.
But Majendie's heart had hardened. He said to himself, "She is too much for me." As he lay awake thinking of her, he remembered Maggie. He remembered that Maggie loved him, and that he had gone away from her and left her, because he loved Anne. And now, because he loved Anne, he would go to Maggie. He remembered that it was on Fridays that he used to go and see her.
Very well, to-morrow night would be Friday night.
To-morrow night he would go and see her.
And yet, when to-morrow night came, he did not go. He never went until December, when Maggie's postal orders left off coming. Then he knew that Maggie was ill again. She had been fretting. He knew it; although, this time, she had not written to tell him so.