After all he couldn't make a clean breast of it! Whatever he might say would reflect on Birdie, and he gave the explanation up in despair. But Nance came to his rescue.
"I know, Dan," she said. "Mrs. Smelts told me everything. I don't know another fellow in the world that would have stood by a girl like you did Birdie. She oughtn't have let you marry her without telling you."
"I think she meant to give me my freedom when the baby came," said Dan. "At least that was what she promised. I couldn't have lived through those first months of hell if I hadn't thought there was some way out. But when the baby came, it was too late. Her mind was affected, and by the law of the State I'm bound to her for the rest of her life."
"Do you know—who—who the baby's father is, Dan?"
"No. She refused from the first to tell me, and now I'm glad I don't know. She said the baby was like him, and that made her hate it. That was the way her trouble started. She wouldn't wash the little chap, or feed him, or look after him when he was sick. I had to do everything. For a year she kept getting worse and worse, until one night I caught her trying to set fire to his crib. Of course after that she had to be sent to the asylum, and from that time on, Ted and I fought it out together. One of the neighbors took charge of him in the day, and I wrestled with him at night."
"Couldn't you put him in an orphan asylum?"
Dan shook his head.
"No, I couldn't go back on him when he was up against a deal like that. I made up my mind that I'd never let him get lonesome like I used to be, with nobody to care a hang what became of him. He's got my name now, and he'll never know the difference if I can help it."
"And Birdie? Does she know you when you go to see her?"
"Not for two years now. It's easier than when she did."