“Our child! Oh, Father of heaven! is there no mercy for me? Have I not suffered enough?”
The woman had no strength to stand. As grass goes down beneath the scythe, her limbs gave way, and her face fell forward on the cushions of the sofa.
Ross bent over her.
“Elizabeth!”
“Leave me! You have torn the vulture from my heart—let it bleed to death; for, in a little while, I, like my child, will be beyond human reach! God knows all that I have done, and all I have suffered.”
Ross knelt down by the woman, and laid his hand on her shoulder. Her suffering overpowered all sense of wrong in his bosom. The thing which she had done seemed less hideous when her grief filled the room, as with the wail of a mother bereft.
“Our child is not dead, Elizabeth! I come to tell you so!”
The woman lifted her face.
“Not dead!”
“Let that awful thought haunt you no longer. The child is alive. Not an hour ago I held her in my arms. God spared her life, and you, wretched woman, a great crime.”