It would be some time before
she could come down from London, Mrs. Priestly had said. The tears
were falling fast down their cheeks.
"You won't love any one else but mummy, will you, Maurie?"
"Shan't love her," he had said, with a thrusting of his head towards
the door which Mrs. Bishop had just closed.
"And you'll say prayers every night and every morning?"
"Yes, mummy."
"And you'll say, 'God help mummy'"
"Will I pray for father?"
She took a deep breath as she looked above his head. He was too young
to feel the weight of the pause. It meant nothing to him. He thought
she had not heard.
"Will I pray for father?" he repeated.
"Yes," she said slowly; "pray for father, pray for him first, and
then mummy, just before you go to sleep. God bless you, my little
darling--" and in the fierce blinding passion which a mother alone
can understand, she caught him again in her arms and crushed his
yielding little body to her heart.
Such was the arrival of Master Maurice Priestly at No. 17, Wyatt
Street.
When she arrived, some three weeks after this event, Sally found a
little fair-haired boy with sad blue eyes whom at night, in the room
next to hers, she sometimes heard crying.
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