I have never deserved it.

I don't now--but you never fail me." Her voice was clearer now--her cheeks, too, had regained some of their color.

Harry listened wonderingly, his arm still around her.
"I couldn't do anything else, Annie--nobody could under the circumstances." His voice had dropped almost to a whisper.
"But it was for me you did it, St.George.I would rather think of it that way; it makes it easier.

Say you did it for me." St.George stooped down, raised her thin white hand to his lips, kissed it reverently, and without a word of any kind walked to the door of his bedroom and shut it behind him.
Mrs.Rutter's hand dropped to her lap and a smile of intense relief passed over her face.

She neither looked after St.George, nor did she offer any explanation to Harry; she merely bent forward and continued her caresses, stroking the boy's glossy hair, patting the white temples with her delicate fingers, smoothing the small, well-set ears and the full brown throat, kissing his forehead, her eyes reading his face, wondering if she had spoken too freely and yet regretting nothing: what she had said had come straight from her heart and she was not ashamed of it.
The boy lay still, his head against her breast.