"I have heard it," Curtiss interrupted grimly, and I saw a spasm of pain convulse the face at the door.
But Mrs. Lawrence was looking up at him, her eyes alight.
"And it will make no difference!" she cried. "It can make no difference—for you love her—I know it—I can see it—you love her just as you always did!"
"Yes," said Curtiss hoarsely. "God help me, I love her just as I always did!"
"Then you can't give her up—you won't—that would be cruel—would kill her, I think—for it's no fault of hers——"
"Give her up!" echoed Curtiss, seized suddenly with a terrible trembling. "No, I'll never give her up!"
"I knew it," she said triumphantly. "I knew I'd not misjudged you. And there need be no scandal. No one need ever know!"
What was she saying? What infamy was she proposing? But not with the joy-illumined face! Ah, she did not understand, and we should have to tell her!
"It was wrong, I know," she went on, more calmly. "But when the mother died, he wanted to take the child to rear it as his own—I had not given him any—and since—since—there was a sorrow in my own life, I could understand and forgive. It was a kind of penance—an atonement—and I welcomed it. Besides, he was not wholly to blame, for she—but I'll speak no ill of her. And I grew to love the child for her own sake—I grew to forget that she was not really mine——"
Curtiss was clutching blindly at a chair, his face ghastly, his eyes staring.