“Philip d’Avranche!” she said to herself. Then aloud, in a shaking voice—“Philip d’Avranche!”
She could not think clearly for a moment. It was as if her brain had received a blow, and in her head was a singing numbness, obscuring eyesight, hearing, speech.
When she had recovered a little she took the child from Maitresse Aimable, and pressing him to her bosom placed him in the Sieur de Mauprat’s great arm-chair. This action, ordinary as it seemed, was significant of what was in her mind. The child himself realised something unusual, and he sat perfectly still, two small hands spread out on the big arms.
“You always believed in me, ‘tresse Aimable,” Guida said at last in a low voice.
“Oui-gia, what else?” was the instant reply. The quick responsiveness of her own voice seemed to confound the Femme de Ballast, and her face suffused.
Guida stooped quickly and kissed her on the cheek. “You’ll never regret that. And you will have to go on believing still, but you’ll not be sorry in the end, ‘tresse Aimable,” she said, and turned away to the fireplace. An hour afterwards Mattresse Aimable was upon her way to St. Heliers, but now she carried her weight more easily and panted less. Twice within the last month Jean had given her ear a friendly pinch, and now Guida had kissed her—surely she had reason to carry her weight more lightly.
That afternoon and evening Guida struggled with herself: the woman in her shrinking from the ordeal at hand. But the mother in her pleaded, commanded, ruled confused emotions to quiet. Finality of purpose once determined, a kind of peace came over her sick spirit, for with finality there is quiescence if not peace.
When she looked at the little Guilbert, refined and strong, curiously observant, and sensitive in temperament like herself, her courage suddenly leaped to a higher point than it had ever known. This innocent had suffered enough. What belonged to him he had not had. He had been wronged in much by his father, and maybe—and this was the cruel part of it—had been unwittingly wronged, alas! how unwilling, by her! If she gave her own life many times, it still could be no more than was the child’s due.
A sudden impulse seized her, and with a quick explosion of feeling she dropped on her knees, and looking into his eyes, as though hungering for the words she so often yearned to hear, she said:
“You love your mother, Guilbert? You love her, little son?”