"I had hoped, dear, but I had not hoped so much as this--nothing like so much as this, and I cannot bear to hear you say so much. Listening to it makes me seem to have done you an injury."
"And I'd do everything that you told me. I'd even go away."
"Hush, child, hush! It is not right to say such things."
"But they are true. I'd go away and live alone with my heart if you told me, Philip. Now don't you see that I love you?"
"I do, dear. But now I see how much less my love is than yours, for I could not go away and live alone with my heart."
"I could. Shall we see to the boy now?"
"Yes."
CHAPTER XXXI.
[BY THE BOY'S BEDSIDE.]
Kate Mellor, lying beside her child on the bed, suddenly became aware of footsteps approaching the cottage along the canal face of the island. She had been fondling and talking to Frank, and he was now half awake.