"She must never know," answered Cynthia, while the tears streamed unheeded down her cheeks. "When she is carried out one day for her airing, she shall go back into the other house. It is a short time now at best—she may die at any moment from any shock—but she must die without knowing this. There must be quiet at the end, at least. Oh, poor mother! poor mother!"
She raised her hands to her convulsed face, and Christopher saw the tears trickle through her thin fingers,
"She must never know," repeated the boy. "She must never know if we can help it."
"We must help it," cried Cynthia passionately. "We must work our fingers to the bone to help it, you and I."
"And Lila?" asked the boy, curiously just even in the intensity of his emotion. "Mustn't Lila work, too?"
Cynthia sobbed—hard, strangling sobs that rattled like stones within her bosom.
"Lila is only a girl," she said, "and so pretty, so pretty."
The boy nodded.
"Then don't let's make Lila work," he responded sturdily.
Selfish in her supreme unselfishness, the woman turned and kissed his brow, while he struggled, irritated, to keep her off.