And after Mrs. Ryder had gone she sat down at her desk and wrote a note.
"You must not talk to me again as you did last evening," it said. "I have told you so before, but I may not have seemed in earnest. Now I am in earnest, and you must not—you shall not do it. I know it has been a great deal my fault, and I am sorry for it. Indeed, you must believe that I did not think of its coming to this."
Then she sealed it and gave it to the servant to mail, after which she went up-stairs and talked to Miss Ramsey until dinner.
The next day she went to Mrs. Ryder's, and they sat down to luncheon at a small round table and talked as women talk in whom feeling is predominant over thought, and to whom life represents a rhythmic series of emotions rather than waves of mental evolution.
They spoke in low, almost affectionate voices, conscious of one of those sudden outreaches of sympathy to which women are subject. When luncheon was over they went up to the nursery, and Mariana knelt upon the floor and romped with the child, who pulled her loosened hair, uttering shrill shrieks of delight. At last she rose hurriedly, and Mrs. Ryder saw that a tear trembled on her lashes.
The elder woman's heart expanded.
"You have had a child?" she asked, softly.
"Yes."
"And lost it?"
"Yes, I lost it."