This promise appeared to satisfy him. Suddenly he looked--
Jackie hesitated; his mother pressed him for an answer.
"But if he was to give you another boat, one with four sails?"
"They don't have four sails, not them with one mast."
"If he was to give you a boat with two masts, would you take it?"
"I should try not to, I should try ever so hard."
There were tears in Jackie's voice, and then, as if doubtful of his power to resist temptation, he buried his face in his mother's bosom and sobbed bitterly.
"You shall have another boat, my darling."
"I don't want no boat at all! I love you better than a boat, mummie, indeed I do."
"And what about those clothes? You'd sooner stop with me and wear those shabby clothes than go to him and wear a pretty velvet suit?"
"Can I? My darling, mummie will give you another velvet suit," and she embraced the child with all her strength, and covered him with kisses.
"But why can't I wear that velvet suit, and why can't father come back? Why don't you like father? You shouldn't be cross with father because he gave me the boat. He didn't mean no harm."
"I think you like your father. You like him better than me."
"You wouldn't like to have any other father except your own real father?"
"How could I have a father that wasn't my own real father?"
Esther did not press the point, and soon after Jackie began to talk about the possibility of mending his boat; and feeling that something irrevocable had happened, Esther put on her hat and jacket, and Mrs. Lewis and Jackie accompanied her to the station. The women kissed each other on the platform and were reconciled, but there was a vague sensation of sadness in the leave-taking which they did not understand. And Esther sat alone in a third-class carriage absorbed in consideration of the problem of her life. The life she had dreamed would never be hers--somehow she seemed to know that she would never be Fred's wife. Everything seemed to point to the inevitableness of this end.
She had determined to see William no more, but he wrote asking how she would like him to contribute towards the maintenance of the child, and this could not be settled without personal interviews. Miss Rice and Mrs. Lewis seemed to take it for granted that she would marry William when he obtained his divorce. He was applying himself to the solution of this difficulty, and professed himself to be perfectly satisfied with the course that events were taking. And whenever she saw Jackie he inquired after his father; he hoped, too, that she had forgiven poor father, who had never meant no harm at all. Day by day she saw more clearly that her instinct was right in warning her not to let the child see William, that she had done wrong in allowing her feelings to be overruled by Miss Rice, who had, of course, advised her for the best. But it was clear to her now that Jackie never would take kindly to Fred as a stepfather; that he would never forgive her if she divided him from his real father by marrying another man. He would grow to dislike his stepfather more and more; and when he grew older he would keep away from the house on account of the presence of his stepfather; it would end by his going to live with him. He would be led into a life of betting and drinking; she would lose her child if she married Fred.