"I've forgiven you, my love, and I'm going to let you teach me again to live. I'll be a very docile little scholar in your school. But you know I can't forget in a moment the greatest single hour that is given a woman to know—the hour she feels the breath of her first born on her breast. It's the memory of that hour that hurts. I won't try to deceive you. I'll get over it in the years to come if God sends them——"
"He will send them—he will send them!" the man broke in with desperate emotion.
Both were silent for several minutes and a smile began to play about the blue eyes when she spoke at last:
"You remember how angry you were that morning when you found a doctor and a nurse in charge of your home? And the great fear that gripped your heart at the first mad cry of pain I gave? I laughed at myself the next moment. And then how I found your hand and wouldn't let you go. The doctor stormed and ordered you out, and I just held on and shook my head, and you stayed. And when the doctor turned his back I whispered in your ear:
"''You won't leave me, Dan, darling, for a single moment—promise me—swear it!'
"And you answered:
"'Yes, I swear it, honey—but you must be very brave—braver than I am, you know'——
"And you begged me to take an anesthetic and I wouldn't, like a little fool. I wanted to know all and feel all if it killed me. And the anguish of your face became so terrible, dear—I was sorrier for you than for myself. And when I saw your lips murmuring in an agony of prayer, I somehow didn't mind it then——"
She paused, looked far out over the hills and continued:
"What a funny cry he gave—that first one—not a real baby cry—just a funny little grunt like a good-natured pig! And how awfully disappointed you were at the shapeless bundle of red flesh that hardly looked human! But I could see the lines of your dear face in his, I knew that he would be even handsomer than his big, brave father and pressed him close and laughed for joy——"