‘Of course, of course,’ replied the doctor, cheerfully, ‘and will do so again, no doubt, but there is no harm in taking a little precaution. He is getting a heavy boy now, you know, and a fall is, consequently, more risky. But, doubtless, he will be all right after a few days’ rest. Get him to bed, and don’t take him out again till I have seen him in the morning.’
He left her with this sorry bit of comfort, and she carried her little boy up to her own bed, and prepared to watch by him for the night herself. As long as the nurse attended on her and Wally, she was undisturbed, but when she had dismissed her, and all the house was quiet, she heard the door between her room and that of her husband softly unclose, and Henry Hindes’s haggard face appeared in the opening. Hannah felt so much disgust for him at that moment, that she could not help showing the feeling in her face and manner.
‘Oh, go away, go away!’ she exclaimed with averted eyes, ‘I can’t bear to see you or hear your voice. You have done enough mischief, God knows! Go away and leave me in peace with my child. It is the least thing you can do.’
‘Is he dead?’ demanded Hindes, in an awed whisper.
‘He is not; but it is not your fault that he still lives. And what terrible results may follow this unnatural fall, no one knows. I told you what your habits would lead to. You have the consolation of knowing that you have injured, and perhaps killed, your favourite child by your fatal indulgence.’
‘No! not killed—not killed—’ he repeated hoarsely, ‘it is impossible. God cannot have so little mercy.’
‘Mercy!’ cried Hannah, shrilly, for the accident to her baby had dried up, for the time being, every drop of the milk of human kindness in her, ‘what mercy have you a right to expect at His hand—you, who showed none? You are not satisfied with making one mother childless. You must try and take the only joy left in my wretched life from me. You deprived me of the society of my girls, and now you want to murder my boy.’
She had used the word inadvertently, but it stabbed the unfortunate man before her to the heart. He glared wildly at her for a minute, and then, with a low cry like the protest of a wounded animal, he slammed the door between them, and locked it on the other side. Hannah had a bolt on hers, and she rose at once and drew it. She felt she could not endure his presence again that night. So she sat by Wally’s side, and watched his feverish slumbers alone till daylight.
CHAPTER IV.
Doctor Sewell’s report, the next morning, was not entirely satisfactory.