She shook her head feebly. "I can't," she said.
"Why not, dear?"
"I didn't want to tell you. But now you make me. Frank, dear, I am ill."
His heart almost stopped. "Ill? Oh, my darlin', what is it? Is it serious? Tell me it isn't serious?" and his voice rang with a note of agony.
"Oh, no, I don't think so. I saw the doctor to-day. He said I must be careful—very careful until—until—our baby is born."
"An' ye kept it all to yerself, me brave one, me dear one. All right. We won't go back. We'll stay here. I'll make them find me work. I'm strong. I'm clever too and crafty, Angela. I'll wring it from this hustling, city. I'll fight it and beat it. Me darlin' shall have everything she wants. My little mother—my precious little mother."
He cradled her in his strong arms and together they sat for hours and the pall of his poverty fell from them and they pictured the future rose-white and crowned with gold—a future in which there were THREE—the trinity one and undivided.
Presently she fell asleep in his arms. He raised his eyes to heaven and prayed God to help him in his hour of striving. He prayed that the little life sleeping so calmly in his arms would be spared him.
"Oh God! answer my prayer, I beseech you," he cried. Angela smiled contentedly in her sleep and spoke his same. It seemed to O'Connell as if his prayer had been heard and answered. He gathered the slight form up in, his arms and carried her to her room and sat by her until dawn.
It was the first night for many weeks that she had slept through till morning without starting out of her sleep in pain. This night she slumbered like a child and a smile played on her lips as though her dreams were happy ones.