The boy was silent.
“Bobby, was he?”
Slowly the boy’s eyes fell.
“Well, of course, sometimes dad would”—he began; but Margaret interrupted him.
“I knew it—I just knew it—I just knew there wasn’t any,” she moaned; “but I can’t make mother see it—I just can’t!”
This was but the first of many talks between Margaret and Bobby upon the same subject, and always Margaret was seeking for a possible averting of the catastrophe. To convince her mother of the awfulness of the fate awaiting her, and so to persuade her to abandon the idea of marriage, was out of the question, Margaret soon found. It was then, perhaps, that the idea of speaking to the doctor himself first came to her.
“If I could only get him to promise things!” she said to Bobby. “If I could only get him to promise!”
“Promise?”
“Yes; to be good and kind, you know,” nodded Margaret, “and not like a husband.”
Bobby laughed; then he frowned and was silent. Suddenly his face changed.