"He's a sick baby, but I've had them worse off than that. You go out there and make up your mind that Baby is going to get well," he answered.
Jerry led her out into the semi-darkness of the upper veranda.
"I can't sit still, Jerry; let's walk."
"All right."
His hand grasped her forearm, slipped through, until it found her hand. She clung to him with a force that hurt. In silence they walked up and down, up and down. When they passed the windows and the light struck across Jane's face, Jerry thought he had never seen such anguish in a human countenance. He could not bear to look, it was as if he were gazing into something not intended for eyes to see—something primal, savage, terrible which only God could endure. He knew she was on the rack, yet he could not comfort her. He knew that his own grief would be acute if his son was taken away, but he foresaw it would be nothing to the agony of this mother. "Oh, Mary pity, women——" came to his mind, with an overwhelming realization of the pathos of life. This groping of human creatures toward—what? All bound together in strange, even accidental, relationship; held in bondage by affections, instincts, passions; fighting free—going on—but where? Bobs's terrible sculpture of "Woman" stood out before him, and he understood. He looked into the hearts and souls of Bobs, of Jane, even of Althea and himself, in this sacrament of emotion he was drinking.
Jane's consciousness was like the shifting, fever-haunted dreams of a drug fiend. She was numb, like a lump of stone. She saw things tugging at her—devils. They burned her with torches, but she did not feel anything but this ache of loss. A figure hovered, gray, indistinguishable; she thought it was remorse, or perhaps death, waiting. Suddenly it looked at her and she saw it was Christ, gazing at her with accusing eyes, yet full of sorrow. She groaned, and tried to pray, but her tongue was dead. Visions that had come to her, in sleep, before the baby's birth, came again, to mock her. She knew herself condemned to walk for years this lonely road she was traversing. Always at the end, she must turn and go back looking for little Jerry who was lost. She could hear him crying—she knew he needed her—but she could not get to him. Something seemed to walk beside her—she could not remember what it was—it clung to her and she to it. Out of the horror she turned her head to the light which struck across her husband's face.
"Oh, Jerry!" she sobbed.
"Steady, Jane, steady. They have to hurt him a little, dear."
"Jerry, talk to me. I'm afraid of my thoughts," she whispered to him.
He saw she was nearly beside herself, so he forced himself to tell her all the trivial happenings since her departure. Stories about Billy Biggs, the conversation at one of the Brendons' dinners, the account of the Bryce child's latest escapade. He heard his voice going on and on, he saw Jane's frantic effort to listen to him, yet he knew that his real self was indoors with those low-voiced men, who were trying to hold the fine, silken thread of life in their sensitive fingers.