"You meant?" Cyril Blakeney said as he went with him, carrying his drenched boy.
"Cyril is Esmé's child," Bertie said bitterly. "Your wife bought him from her. I heard it all as they talked on the sands. She told me where to find proof."
"Ah!" said Cyril, slowly. "Ah!"
Denise was tottering behind them, wild with fear, grey-faced, all beauty reft from her.
"God send," said Sir Cyril, reverently, "that both come to, and we live to repay for the blight we cast on your wife's name, Carteret."
"I cast a worse one," said Bertie, fiercely.
Then long-drawn working, as the living strive with death, as the poor quiet body is forced to life. But no working brought a quiver to little Cyril; they left him at last quiet in his cot; the motherless boy was at peace for ever.
Esmé's breath came fluttering. She had closed her eyes on sea and sky, opened them to see watching, kindly faces.
"Hush, do not speak," they told her.
"Cyril?" she whispered, and knew without an answer.