I saw Mrs. Fleming look at it with eyes that were wet with tears.
"Does it sadden you?" asked Lance. "It need not; the little one looks young and tender to be left alone, but the water is silent and the mother is near. She never left him. What a pretty story of mother-love it is."
The beautiful face paled, the lips trembled slightly.
"It is a beautiful picture," she said, "to come from that land of darkness; it makes something of the poetry of the Nile."
Watching her, I said to myself, "That woman has not deadened her conscience; she has tried and failed. There is more good than evil in her."
All night long there sounded in my ears those words, "A life for a life!" And I wondered what would, what could, be the punishment of a mother who took the life of her own child?
CHAPTER X.
This state of things could not last. A shade of fear or mistrust came in her manner to me. I must repeat, even at the risk of being wearisome, that I think no man was ever in such a painful position. Had it not been for my fore-knowledge, I should have loved Mrs. Fleming for her beauty, her goodness and her devotion to my dear old friend. I could not bear to tell him the truth, nor could I bear that he should be so basely and terribly deceived—that he should be living with and loving one whom I knew to be a murderess. So I waited for an opportunity of appealing to herself, and it came sooner than I had expected.
One afternoon Lance had to leave us on business; he said he might be absent some few hours—he was going to Vale Royal. He asked me if I would take Mrs. Fleming out; she had complained of headache, and he thought a walk down by the river might be good for her. I promised to do so, and then I knew the time for speaking to her had come.