"Come, this is too much," he exclaimed. "You talk of a child of mine—I, who never had a child. What are you dreaming about?"
CHAPTER XV.
On the evening of that same day Awdrey entered the room where his wife was silently giving way to her bitter anguish. She was quite overcome by her grief—her eyelids were swollen by much weeping, her dress was disarranged, the traces of a sleepless night, and the fearful anguish through which she was passing, were visible on her beautiful face. Awdrey, who had come into the room almost cheerfully, started and stepped back a pace or two when he saw her—he then knit his brows with marked irritation.
"What can be the matter with you, Margaret?" he cried. "I cannot imagine why you are crying in that silly way."
"I'll try not to cry any more, Robert," she answered.
"Yes, but you look in such dreadful distress; I assure you, it affects me most disagreeably, and in my state of nerves!—you know, don't you, that nothing ever annoys me more than weak, womanish tears."
"It is impossible for me to be cheerful to-night," said the wife. "The pain is too great. He was our only child, and such—such a darling."
Awdrey laughed.
"Forgive me, my dear," he said, "I really would not hurt your feelings for the world, but you must know, if you allow your common sense to speak, that we never had a child. It has surely been one of our great trials that no child has been given to us to carry on the old line. My poor Maggie," he went up to her quite tenderly, put his arm round her neck, and kissed her, "you must be very unwell to imagine these sort of things."