"Terrible?" said I. "But why? It's your child. By no right or consideration is it his. You've suffered for it. That's the only right of possession. It won't be terrible at all. I just think of it as your child. He doesn't enter my head."
That was a lie, but worth telling, since it made her mind the easier. He does enter into my thoughts. I burn hot with foolish anger sometimes when I think of him. But all this was disarming Destiny, and Destiny disarmed does strange and unexpected things.
Perowne came late one night at a summons from the nurse. I heard the door of Clarissa's bedroom open and close many times that night. All through the hours I lay awake listening, revolving in my mind a thousand meanings of what it could be. At last I could bear the vague speculation of it no longer. I crept out of my room and button-holed Perowne as he came downstairs.
"I can't stand this," said I. "What is it?"
"The child," said he.
"Born?"
"Yes."
"Well?"
"Dead."
Dead? It meant nothing to me. I knew then it had never held life at all in my mind. That it was still-born seemed to me then the only natural thing that could happen.