Page:Possession (1926).pdf/501

 as she played she stole a glance now and then over her shoulders at the tall windows past which Ellen and Callendar moved with a clock-like regularity. But she was not the only one who watched. There was Hattie too and even old Thérèse. Each of them desired from Ellen a different thing, and each of them was resolved to have her own will in the matter.

Outside the windows the husband and the wife with the black dog at their heels walked up and down while Ellen, looking tall and pale and desperate, talked earnestly.

"The child," she said firmly, "is to be mine. I will fight until the end for that. I have made up my mind. I will not have him go to you. . . . You are not fit."

He said nothing in reply. It was not possible to argue at such a time. She was fighting now, as he had always done, unscrupulously, to achieve what she desired. They turned at the end of the terrace and moved back once more past the windows where Rebecca and Hattie and Thérèse kept peering out. It was (thought Ellen in a peaceful moment) like bearing one's child in public. . . as the French Queens had done, with a whole crowd looking on. . . . (But she must bring her mind back to the business at hand.)

"And if anything happens to me," she said to Callendar, "if I should die and the child live . . . he is to be brought up by my mother. I have talked to my lawyers. It is possible to arrange all that. There is plenty of evidence against you . . . even a French court—" She gasped for breath and turned again. "Even a French court would uphold me in that. Besides Rebecca has promised me that she will carry on the fight. I tell you all this, because I want you to know that I am finished forever." She was walking rapidly now and made a sudden passionate gesture in the direction of the windows. "Rebecca need not look at us so anxiously. There is no question about it. . . . And I will not leave a child of mine in such an atmosphere as you and your mother are able to provide." She drew another quick, sharp