In the last days of August the baby was born. Denasia recovered rapidly, but the little lad was a sickly, puny child. He had been wasted by fever, and fretted by anxious cares and by many fears, even before they were his birthright. All the more he appealed to his mother’s love, and Denasia began now to comprehend something of the sin against mother-love which she herself had committed.
Perhaps she permitted her joy in her child to dominate her life too visibly; at any rate it soon 236 began to annoy her husband. He had been so accustomed to all of Denasia’s time and attention that he could not endure to be put off until baby was asleep, or until some trifling want of baby’s had been attended to. He fancied that her attention was divided; that even when she appeared to be listening to his complaints or his intentions, her heart was with the child and her ears listening for its crying. The transient pleasure he had experienced in the little one’s birth soon passed away, and an abiding sense of petty jealousy and wrong took its place.
“You are for ever nursing that crying little creature, Denasia,” he said one day when he returned to their small, warm room in a fever of annoyance at some unappreciative manager. “No one can get your attention for five minutes. You hear nothing I say. You take no interest in anything I do. And the little torment is for ever and for ever crying.”
“Baby is sick, Roland. And who is there to care for him but me?”
“We ought to be doing something. Winter is coming on. Companies are already on the road; you will find it hard to get a position of any kind, soon.”
“I will go out to-morrow. I am strong enough now, I think.”
“I can find nothing suitable. People seem to take an instant dislike to me.”
“That is nonsense! You were always a favourite.”
“I have had to sell most of my jewelry in order to provide for your sickness, Denasia. Of course I was glad to do it, you know that, but–––”