“You had better stay at home,” he said to Conning; “children are skittish little craft. The best of them haul up anchor sometimes when you least expect it.”
So Truedale remained at home and, wandering through the quiet house, wondered at the intensity of his suffering as he contemplated the time on ahead without the child who had so recently come into his life from he knew not where. He attributed it all to Ann’s remarkable characteristics.
Late in the afternoon of the anxious day he went into the sick room and leaned over the bed. Ann opened her eyes and smiled up at him, weakly.
“Make a light, father,” she whispered, and with a fear-filled heart Truedale touched the electric button. The room was already filled with sunlight, for it faced the west; but for Ann it was cold and dark.
Then, as if setting the last pitiful scene for her own departure, she turned to Lynda: “Make a mother-lap for Ann,” she said. Lynda tenderly lifted the thin form from the bed and held it close.
“I—I taught you how to be a mother, didn’t I, mommy-Lyn?” she had never called Lynda simply “mother,” while “father” had fallen naturally from her lips.
“Yes, yes, little Ann.” Lynda’s eyes were filled with tears and in that moment she realized how much the child meant to her. She had done her duty, had exceeded it at times, in her determination not to fall short. She had humoured Ann, often taking sides against Conning in her fear of being unjust. But oh! there had always been something lacking; and now, too late, she felt that, for all her struggle, she had not been true to the vow she had made to Nella-Rose!
But Ann was gazing up at her with a strange, penetrating look.
“It’s the comfiest lap in the world,” she faltered, “for little, tired girls.”
“I—I love her!” Lynda gazed up at Truedale as if confessing and, at the end, seeking forgiveness.