“Jim won’t let you take my child? I knew it! Shall I always go on dreaming things that can never be?”
Delia, her tears running down, knelt by the bed and gave her fresh hand into the other’s burning clutch.
“Don’t think that, dear: think only of what you’d like best....”
“Like best?” The girl sat up sharply against her pillows, alive to the hot fingertips.
“You can’t marry Joe, dear—can you—and keep little Tina?” Delia continued.
“Not keep her with me, no: but somewhere where I could slip off to see her—oh, I had hoped such follies!”
“Give up follies, Charlotte. Keep her where? See your own child in secret? Always in dread of disgrace? Of wrong to your other children? Have you ever thought of that?”
“Oh, my poor head won’t think! You’re trying to tell me that I must give her up?”
“No, dear; but that you must not marry Joe.”
Charlotte sank back on the pillow, her eyes half-closed. “I tell you I must make my child a home. Delia, you’re too blest to understand!”