"I can't bear it," she whispered; "I can't bear it. I don't believe that anyone, could think that of Hugh. Remember how loved he was at Harrow———"
"Ah! my dear, my dear, there was your great mistake . . ."
"You're wrong," interrupted Jill harshly. "You're hopelessly, cruelly wrong. He was idolised in England; he is loved out here. It was sheer spite on the part of the—woman who told him that he was—was——" She pressed her hands over her mouth as she backed to the wall, then flung her arms out wide; her face was dead-white, her eyes blazing; she reminded the old woman of a tigress fighting for her cubs; she was beautiful beyond words in the tragedy of her motherhood. "I don't believe you—I don't believe you—I—you———"
"Listen, Jill." The old woman's voice was as cold as ice as she watched the agony in the fair face. Dear heavens! she did not want to hurt; she wanted to give in and gather the child up in her arms, but she knew what was best. "Your boy knows it, dear; he knows he is out of the running. Come over to me and listen whilst I tell you something." She sat down and pulled the suffering child down beside her, who lay across the silken knees like the stricken mother across the knees of the wise Madonna and made no sound or movement whilst she listened to the bitter words of the fortune-teller in the hotel garden at Cairo.
A little silence fell; then, very gently, very tenderly the old woman spoke:
"So you see, dear, until she is of age it will be only my duty to see that Damaris does not marry your son."
And Jill sprang to her feet and beat her hands together.
"And I," she said, "I will give my heart's blood to bring happiness to my son. Death alone shall———"
She stopped and shivered as she glanced over her shoulder out into the night, then drew herself up with a surpassing dignity and threw out her hands in the Eastern gesture of resignation.
"You say 'I will not,' I say 'I will,' but it is God who decides." With a little sobbing sigh she relinquished the unequal struggle, just as Hobson walked boldly into the room and stood inside the door, like a graven image of intense displeasure, when her mistress, unable to withstand the unspoken disapproval, consented, after a promise to Jill to have another long talk on the morrow, to go to bed.