“The old doctor told me that he had tried kindly and gently to inform young Mrs. Fleming of the birth of a child—that indeed she had some hazy recollections of the crisis of her illness, before the anæsthetic, but that she had given no sign of understanding him.
“I rented the furnished apartment next to mine and brought her there; she looked dying then, as she was—she lay perfectly passive and motionless all day, sometimes crying, sometimes reading, only taking a little tea, or a little soup.
“One day I came home, and she had put on a wrapper and come into Lily’s room. Lily was better and was sitting up, and I had begun to feel as one does feel in such emergencies that I might weather this time—strange and terrible as it was. Sylvia was on the floor with a doll, and the nurse had brought the new baby in, in her basket, to get the sunshine in the window there.
“Cecily was crying—crying hysterically—but even that much emotion seemed to me a good sign. Lily was lying on the bed, and Cecily kneeling beside her with her face buried against her knees.
“I had been utterly dissatisfied with Cecily’s nurse, who was a careless, neglectful creature, and I was furious to see that she had let her patient get out of bed at all.
“‘Cecily!’ I said. ‘You must not—excitement like this will be dangerous to you!’
“Lily looked at me with that bright, childish smile she had had since her illness. ‘Cecily has been looking at my baby, Flo,’ she said, happily. ‘Isn’t it a sweet baby, Flo? It couldn’t be wrong to have a sweet baby like that, could it?’
“The servant, Carrie, looked at me significantly. And I saw that salvation for Cecily might lie here. Cecily had been looking into my eyes. Now she buried her face again and burst out, in a sort of whisper:
“‘Oh, my God, I thank Thee! Oh, my God, how good Thou art! Oh, I am so grateful—I am so humbly grateful!’
“We got her back to bed, and when we were alone she said to me: ‘Flora, I must tell you something. I can tell you now, for I am going to die, and God has forgiven me! I could not give life to any other soul, Flora, and I could not die knowing that my sins would be visited on a poor little baby! No, no—I could not bear that.