"Ah!" cried Susan, "is that dear Mrs. Duncan's little boy? Do let me see it!"
There could be no harm in allowing the strange lady to see the baby for a moment, at any rate, so the proud nurse drew back the clothes and disclosed a little sleeping face.
Susan felt her veins tingle with an excitement, the meaning of which she could not herself understand, as she approached and looked at the innocent features.
"Mary's child," she said, "Mary's child; dear me, how strange!" and she stooped to kiss him, as she knew it was her bounden duty to do, if she did not wish to offend the nurse beyond pardon, and so prejudice her chance of seeing the mother.
But just as her lips were about to touch the soft cheek, a sudden surprised cry from the housemaid made her raise her head again.
Then her cowardly spirit failed her, and she looked aghast at what was before her, motionless, save for the tremor that shook her frame.
A form more like a ghost than a living woman was hurrying down the stairs towards her, with arms outstretched, a form that seemed to glide rather than run, so evidently unconscious was its motion.
Clad merely in her white bed-clothes, with face as white as they, the mother was rushing to save her babe. Her expression was one of fixed intense horror; her lips were apart, her eyes dilated, but she spoke no word. She flew to the nurse and snatched her infant into her arms, pressing it against her breast, palpitating with her frightful emotion.
She stood erect and firm, but trembling in every limb, staring at Susan with the same fixed look. Her white throat rose and fell convulsively with the choking sensations that prevented her from speaking.
She stood thus an awful image for many minutes, the frightened servants gazing at her open-mouthed, not knowing what to do. At last she spoke; she raised her arm, and pointing at Susan, cried in a voice that did not sound like her own, so strange and hollow it was, "Go! Go!"