She went restlessly about the room, picking up things and looking at them without seeing them.
In the room upstairs she heard the cries of Rowcliffe's children, bumping and the scampering of feet. She stood still then and clenched her hands. The pain at her heart was like no other pain. It was as if she hated Rowcliffe's children.
Presently she would have to go up and see them.
She waited. Mary was taking her own time.
Upstairs the doors opened and shut on the sharp grief of little children carried unwillingly to bed.
Gwenda's heart melted and grew tender at the sound. But its tenderness was more unbearable to her than its pain.
The maid-servant came to the door.
"Mrs. Rowcliffe says will you please go upstairs to the night nursery,
Miss Gwenda. She can't leave the children."
That was the message Mary invariably sent. She left the children for hours together when other visitors were there. She could never leave them for a minute when her sister came. Unless Steven happened to be in. Then Mary would abandon whatever she was doing and hurry to the two. In the last year Gwenda had never found herself alone with Steven for ten minutes in his house. If Mary couldn't come at once she sent the nurse in with the children.
Upstairs in the night nursery Mary sat in the nurse's low chair. Her year-old baby sprawled naked in her lap. The elder infant stood whining under the nurse's hands.