"Did I ever love any one?" was the answer, given in a voice so deep, so earnest, that it seemed to ring up from the very bottom of a heart where it had been buried for years.
"I hope so, I trust so—do you not love your child?"
The woman dashed back the entire weight of her hair with an impetuous sweep of one hand; then, with the whole Roman contour of her face exposed, she turned a keen look upon the young face lifted so innocently to hers. Long and searching was that look. The shadows of terrible thoughts swept over that face. Some words, it might be of passion, it might be of prayer—for bitterness, grief and repentance, all were blended in that look—trembled unuttered on her lips. Then she suddenly flung up her arms and falling across the bed, cried out in bitter anguish—"Oh, my God!—my God! can I never again be like her?"
CHAPTER XXIII. THE THREE OLD WOMEN.
Why have we three gathered here,
With aching hearts and aching brain?
Death must fill another bier,
Before we three shall meet again.