Before the storm of her wrath Jason stood bowed and helpless. She seemed a long way from him, and yet he could hear her voice crying at him: “You loved her. You would work for her, you would take care of her, but you had not the manhood to wait for her hour of vindication!”
Then Jason spoke: “When I found the money hidden in her house, I thought there never could be such a thing as vindication. With my own hands I hid it where it never would have been discovered, waiting for the hour when she should come to me and tell me herself that she had taken it.”
Ellen cried to him: “And now, what are you going to do?”
He looked at her helplessly. The finger she was pointing toward the cradle was shaking but her voice was clear: “You are giving her your love. You have given me your child. What are you going to do?”
So these two souls battled in agony during an evening of that tense stillness which almost always presages heavy storm in the Central States. The elements outside seemed in keeping with the inside strain when a sudden wind sprang up and boiling yellow clouds were driven before it, and heavy black ones took their place. In a short time their world was enveloped in thick darkness, broken by the flash of lightning, the jarring of thunder and dangerous winds.
Worn out at last with nerve strain, Ellen stood up. She faced Jason, crying: “You haven’t been fair. You had no right to make me the mother of your child when you knew in your heart that you didn’t love me. It isn’t truly mine. Martin Moreland robbed Mahala of her people, her home, her wealth. He would have taken her honour if he could. And how much better are you? You have robbed her heart of the love of a lifetime. I heard her say it. And, at the same time, you robbed her of motherhood. Your child belongs to her, not to me! You may take it to her!”
Jason had endured nerve strain almost to the limit. He was at that dumb place where the brain ceases to function for itself. He realized that he might have had Mahala in his home and in his arms if he had kept firm rein on his physical nature and had had Ellen’s faith in her. The foundations of his life had been shaken. It seemed to him that nothing further could happen. He was past thinking clearly for himself. The first thought that came to his muddled brain was one of protest.
“No, Ellen, no!” he said. “That can’t be done! You’re insane to think of it!”
Nerve strain works one way with some people; it works differently with others. First Ellen had cried until she was exhausted. Then she had argued until she could think no further. When she reached her decision, at that time she had meant what she said. She proved the courage of her convictions by lifting the baby from its cradle, wrapping the blanket around it, and thrusting it into Jason’s arms.
She opened the door, and with apparent calmness and deliberation, she said to him: “I have told you until I’m tired. That child does not belong to me. You may take it to its real mother.”