“I was going to kill myself, but Judith wouldn’t let me. She married Lary, so that they could take—”
Laura Ramsay’s usually placid face took on an expression of intense emotion. She rose to her feet and walked hurriedly to the window.
“If you are going to cut me off—well, that’s all the more reason why I had to tell you,” Eileen said, following her. “It’s what I have to expect.”
“But I don’t intend to cut you off, child. Judith, why couldn’t I do for her what I did in Nelka’s case? Especially if it turns out to be a little girl. Junior is wild for a sister—and it’s the only way I can hope to get one for him. And of course I’d be game, if it were another boy. Won’t you, Judith? I’m sure Griff would approve. Why—why, Eileen, what is the matter?”
The girl had flung herself on her knees, her face in Judith’s lap, her slender body shaken with sobs. When the paroxysm had passed, she slipped to the floor and sat looking from one to the other with a wry smile.
“There is only one stumbling block in the way, Mrs. Ramsay—and that’s me. Judith and I are going to the sanitarium, the middle of April. After the baby comes, I am to hand it over to her and forget about it. Why, I can’t. I croon over it every night, in my dreams. When I’m wide awake, I see him, a splendid man, thrilling audiences with his violin. Wouldn’t I lose my head, some day—go raving mad and tell the whole thing?”
“All the more reason why it should be in the nursery, out at Rye, where you wouldn’t see it. Boy or girl, you must let me have it. The child will be a musical genius,” Laura cried, her eyes beaming with expectant mother-pride.
III
That night Judith talked it over with Lary. She had known, all along, that the thought of this child, with the Marksley brand, filled him with dread. The following day Laura came again, with a whole chest of dainty things. She and her sister had made them before Junior’s coming, and he was such a robust baby that they were outgrown before they had been worn. Griff was as eager as she.
Gradually, as the weeks passed, Judith divorced herself from the thought of the child. Had she a right, when the Ramsays offered sanctuary to the nameless waif—especially in view of Eileen’s preternatural mother-love, and the great loneliness that had been Lary’s, before her coming? There might some day be a child of her own. Her homesickness for Theodora gave her pause—and Theodora had not twined tendrils of helplessness around her heart. Yes, it was best to let Laura have the baby....