" And then one day a
cry of anguish was wrung from her: 'My dear, he will never come here, he
will never, never come!'
She was wrong. He came to the funeral, was extremely cut up, and holding
the child tightly by the hand wept bitterly at the side of the grave.
Miss Anthony, at the cost of a whole week of sneers and abuse from the
poet, saw it all with her own eyes. De Barral clung to the child like a
drowning man. He managed, though, to catch the half-past five fast
train, travelling to town alone in a reserved compartment, with all the
blinds down . . . "
"Leaving the child?" I said interrogatively.
"Yes. Leaving . . . He shirked the problem. He was born that way. He
had no idea what to do with her or for that matter with anything or
anybody including himself. He bolted back to his suite of rooms in the
hotel. He was the most helpless . . . She might have been left in the
Priory to the end of time had not the high-toned governess threatened to
send in her resignation. She didn't care for the child a bit, and the
lonely, gloomy Priory had got on her nerves.
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