"Ah, but——"
"Rose, I beg of you!"
The maid shook her head doubtfully and then with a sigh of resignation, went out to carry the message. Jacqueline, her knees trembling, dropped weakly into a chair and strove to compose herself for the terrible interview to come. In returning she had had no hope of forgiveness, for she had not believed that her husband had ever truly loved her. But now that she had gained hope from Rose's story of his grief her emotions were beyond control.
There was no natural vice in her, and for that reason she had walked in the purgatory of the fallen who are still permitted to see themselves with the eyes of the virtuous. Vice breeds callousness. She had been gay, witty, laughter-loving and emotional. Without love, as she understood it, she felt herself to be incomplete. She had worshipped her husband, but at last had come to believe that she was giving far more than she received. She never knew the heart of the silent, serious, hard-working man. Her vanity was hurt, and through her vanity she fell—to be driven away from her husband and her boy.
Her boy! For two years she had thought of little else, had dreamed of nothing else but the hour when she would be permitted to hold him to her breast. Surely, even the stem attorney who had loved her once would not deny her the mother's right to be with her child in his illness! He must permit her to live where she could see her boy sometimes and watch him grow to manhood!
She picked up the photograph and kissed it passionately again and again.
"Oh, my darling, my dear one! My laddie!" she half sobbed. "If it were not for you I——"
A door facing her opened softly and her husband stepped into the room!