Page:Possession (1926).pdf/502

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breath and added, "I gave you every chance . . . and you were a rotter always. I loved you and I would love you still if I thought there was any chance of redemption . . . but there is none."

And then, before turning toward the pavilion, she said, "You did not win in the end, you see. . . . It was I who won . . . I and Sabine too. . . . And I will go on fighting, even if I should die. It has all been arranged. And now," she said, dismissing him, "will you tell my mother to come with me to the pavilion? I want none of the others . . . only her."

So it was Callendar who summonded Hattie at the moment Ellen needed her most. In the end she belonged to Hattie alone of all those people who sat waiting . . . Hattie, whose whole life had been concerned with love and birth and death.

When they had gone away, Callendar sat on the stone balustrade smoking in silence, conquered now beyond all doubt. He had been dismissed once and for all. Ellen would return now into the world out of which she had come to him . . . a world in which she belonged to Rebecca and her public. Perhaps as he sat there in the hot, still air, waiting for his child to be born, he knew the last of his adventures to which there was any savor had come to an end.

Through the windows he saw de Cyon rise presently and go up the long stairs. He saw Lily (a fascinating woman, he thought, who must have been very beautiful in her youth) talking to his mother who still nibbled at her biscuit. Jean and Rebecca had ceased their music and sat now playing double patience with a fierce, unnatural absorption.

Augustine came in presently with a message. Mrs. Cane Callendar (Sabine) would like to know if there was any news. She went away again with the message Lily gave her: Everything was going well, but there was no news yet.

They were all waiting, waiting, waiting. . . .

Callendar held tight the heavy collar of Hansi, who squirmed