"And you are glad you can say it!"
"Perhaps. No reminder of my old disgrace is pleasant to me."
"Your reformation is very complete," he answered bitterly; "the woman I used to know would have been unable to retaliate upon a helpless child."
The sting of the retort roused her to refutation. Her hand, extended towards the door, dropped to her side; she faced him swiftly.
"You find me what you made me," she said with white lips. "I neither retaliate nor pity. What is your wife's child to me, that you ask me to care for it? If I'm hard, it was you who taught me to be hard before he was born."
"It's my child I asked you to care for. And I brought myself to ask it because he's my dearest thing on earth. I thank God to learn he won't be in your charge!"
She shivered, and for a moment looked at him intently. Then her eyelids drooped, and she left him without a word.
She went out into the corridor—her hand was pressed against her breast. But her duties were not immediately resumed. She made her way into the children's wing, moving with nothing of indecision in her manner, but like one who proceeds to fulfil a purpose. The two rows of beds left a passage down the floor, and she scanned the faces till she reached the nurses' table.
By chance, she spoke to the nurse that Kincaid had summoned.
"There's a boy just been brought in with diphtheria, Sophie; do you know where he is?"