Vivian's eyes were wide and shining. She saw a possible future, not wholly unbearable.
"Has he kissed you yet?" asked the doctor suddenly.
"No," she said. "That is—except——"
"Don't let him. You might catch it. Your friendship must be distant. Well, shall we be going back? I'm sorry, my dear. I did hate awfully to do it. But I hated worse to see you go down those awful steps from which there is no returning."
"Yes," said Vivian. "Thank you. Won't you go on, please? I'll come later."
An hour the girl sat there, with the clear blue sky above her, the soft steady wind rustling the leaves, the little birds that hopped and pecked and flirted their tails so near her motionless figure.
She thought and thought, and through all the tumult of ideas it grew clearer to her that the doctor was right. She might sacrifice herself. She had no right to sacrifice her children.
A feeling of unreasoning horror at this sudden outlook into a field of unknown evil was met by her clear perception that if she was old enough to marry, to be a mother, she was surely old enough to know these things; and not only so, but ought to know them.
Shy, sensitive, delicate in feeling as the girl was, she had a fair and reasoning mind.