‘He looks ill, but——’
‘But?’ There is a terrible inquiry—oh, more, poor child!—there is terrible entreaty in her question.
‘Susan,’ says Crosby, ‘there is always hope. But the child is very ill.’
‘Ah!’ She shrinks from him. ‘That there is no hope is what you want to say to me.’
‘It is not. Far worse cases have sometimes recovered. But in the meantime’ anxiously—‘I think of you. You look exhausted. You shouldn’t keep him on your lap like that. I have just seen Miss Barry, and she tells me you keep him in your arms by night and by day.’
Susan turns upon him with an almost fierce light in her gentle eyes.
‘I shall keep him in my arms always—always—when he wishes it. I——’ She stops. ‘He can’t die whilst I hold him,’ cries she. She draws in her breath sharply, and then, as if the cruel word ‘die’ has stung her, she breaks into silent, but most bitter, weeping.
‘This is killing you,’ says Crosby.
‘Oh, I almost wish it were,’ says she. She has choked back her tears, fearing lest the sleeping child should be disturbed by the heaving of her chest. She lifts her haggard, sad young eyes to his. ‘It is I who have brought him to this pass. Every pang of his should by right be mine. It is I who should bear them.’
‘It seems to me,’ says Crosby gravely, ‘that you are bearing them.’