She had come to the point, had Andrea, as if to the scaffold. She believed that she would be a bad mother to the offspring of the lowborn lover whom she hated more than ever.
At three o’clock in the morning, the doctor opened the door behind which the young gentleman was weeping and praying.
“Your sister has given birth to a son,” he said.
Philip clasped his hands.
“You must not go near her, for she sleeps. If she did not, I should have said: ‘A son is born and the mother is dead.’ Now, you know that we have engaged a nurse. I told her to be ready as I came along by the Pointe-de-Jour, but you shall go for her as she must see nobody else. Profit by the patient’s sleep and take my carriage. I have a patient to attend to on Royale Place where I must finish the night. To-morrow at eight, I will come.”
“Good-night!”
The doctor directed the servant what to do for the mother and child which was placed near her, though Philip, remembering his sister’s aversion thought they ought to be parted.
The gentlemen gone, the waiting woman dozed in a chair near her mistress.
Suddenly the latter was awakened by the cry of the child.
She opened her eyes and saw the sleeping servant. She admired the peace of the room and the glow of the fire. The cry struck her as a pain at first, and then as an annoyance. The child not being near her, she thought it was a piece of Philip’s foresight in executing her rather cruel will. The thought of the evil we wish to do never affects us like the sight of it done. Andrea who execrated the ideal babe and even wished its death, was hurt to hear it wail.