The long winter hid the secret in the dreary cabin. The roads and trails were closed; none drew near for shelter or succour.
By springtime Nella-Rose was afraid of every living creature except the faithful soul who stood guard over her. She ran and trembled at the least sound; she was white and hollow-eyed, but her hate was stronger and fiercer than ever.
Early summer came—the gladdest time of the year. The heat was broken by soft showers; the flowers bloomed riotously, and in July the world-old miracle occurred in Lois Ann’s cabin—Nella-Rose’s child was born! With its coming the past seemed blotted out; hate gave place to reverent awe and tenderness. In the young mother the woman rose supreme and she would not permit her mind to hold a harmful thought.
Through the hours of her travail, when Lois Ann, desperate and frightened, had implored, threatened, and commanded that she should tell the name of the father of her child, she only moaned and closed her lips the firmer. But when she looked upon her baby she smiled radiantly and whispered to the patient old creature beside her:
“Miss Lois Ann, this lil’ child has no father. It is my baby and God sent it. I shall call her Ann—cuz you’ve been right good to me—you sholy have.”
So it was “lil’ Ann” and, since the strange reticence and misunderstood joyousness remained, Lois Ann, at her wit’s end, believing that death or insanity threatened, went secretly to the Greyson house to confess and get assistance.
Peter was away with Jed. The two hung together now like burrs. Whatever of relaxation Martin could hope for lay in Greyson; whatever of material comfort Peter could command, must come through Jed, and so they laboured, in slow, primitive fashion, and edged in a little pleasure together. Marg, having achieved her ambition, was content and, for the first time in her life, easy to get along with. And into this comparative Eden Lois Ann came with words that shattered the peace and calm.
In Marg’s private thought she had never doubted that her sister had often been with Burke Lawson in the Hollow. When he disappeared, she believed Nella-Rose was with him, but she had supported and embellished her father’s story concerning them because it secured her own self-respect and covered the tracks of the degenerate pair with a shield that they in no wise deserved, but which put their defenders in a truly Christian attitude.
Marg was alone in the cabin when Lois Ann entered. She looked up flushed and eager.
“How-de,” she said genially. “Set and have a bite.”