“Deirdre, you have been so good to me, and I must tell you, though I meant to keep it a secret. This looking fragile doesn’t really matter—it is natural.” She paused, then added softly, “It is part of the state of my coming motherhood.”
“Oh!” I cried at last. “How beautiful and wonderful for you, dear! And how glad I am!”
She looked at me shyly and gravely.
“Yes: it is beautiful, Deirdre. But I did not always think so. I knew it long ago, before Rupert went, and it seemed to me then like the last bitter drop in a most bitter cup. Now everything is altered. You and Anthony Kinsella have changed the face of life for him and for me.”
“No, no! You have done it yourselves, dear. Your husband’s fine effort had to be made by himself; no one but one’s self can do these things. One must fight for one’s own soul. You know:
“‘Ye have no friend but Resolution!’”
“Yes, but if Anthony Kinsella had not given him his chance he would never have broken away from—Don’t I know? Oh, God! Did not I pray and watch and fight for him?—and afterwards watch him drop back? Oh, Deirdre, no one can ever know the awful things that passed before hope died in me—that frightful drug rearing its hideous head between us like a great beast! You cannot imagine what it means to a woman to see not only the body but the soul of the man she loves being devoured before her eyes, while she stands looking on—helpless! And then after a time—it is all part of the hideous enslavement—he began to hate me for looking on at his degradation!”
Her face became anguished even at the recollection. I held her hands tightly, but I looked away from her eyes, and we were silent for a while, but presently she went on:
“And your share in it has been great, Deirdre. Without your help I could never have pulled myself out of the pit of despair and desolation into which I had fallen. My spirit was in fetters: but you have helped me to break them—and now I feel strong enough and brave enough for whatever comes. I have a heart for any fate. We have a big fight before us still, I know. Rupert has gone back in his profession all this time that he has done nothing, thought nothing. It will be uphill work getting back to where he was before—and we’ve only a tiny income—and he may be tempted again. But, oh! how I mean to fight for my happiness, Deirdre. And I know that I shall win.”
I could only press her hand tightly, and keep back my own tears. She looked such a delicate little thing to put up such a big fight. It seemed to me at that moment that the battle-field of life was a cruel and hard place for women, and their reward for battles won, all too pitiful. We sat a long time in silence.