CHAPTER IX
HOW SHE FOUND PEACE
Next day her hair was quite white, as if it had been snowed on in the night. But she was herself again, and went quietly about the house, doing all that had to be done, and waiting on Rachel, who lay moaning and crying in her darkened room, exhausted after a night of hysterical passion. Grandmother brought the breakfast tray, and bathed her face and hands and brushed her hair, in silence; she seemed unconscious of her sobs and tears.
“I think you might say something, Grandmother!” Rachel whimpered. “It’s dreadful enough, without your going about looking like a stone image. It isn’t your baby that—oh, dear! and just as I was getting so fond of her. She was just getting to the interesting age. Oh, it’s too awful; isn’t it, Grandmother?”
Grandmother did not heed her, but went on brushing the heavy black hair mechanically.
“I know you were fond of her,” said Rachel, “and I sha’n’t say a word about your keeping her away from me so much. But of course you can’t pretend to feel what I do, Grandmother. You’ve never had a child, you don’t know what a mother feels. You’ve never had anything to feel, really, all your life. Oh, dear! oh, dear! and Manuel takes it so hard; I’m sure I don’t know what is going to become of us. Grandmother, if you are going to be like a wooden stick, I wish you’d go away and send Manuel to me.”
Grandmother went without a word. At the door she met the kind old minister, the same who christened Baby Faith—ah, how long ago? She led him aside to the hall window, and with one hand on his arm pointed upward with the other.
“He let it happen. He sent the little life, and then let it be crushed out like the life of a fly or a worm. Why?”
Her eyes looked through and through him, but the wise old eyes looked back steadily and kindly.