She was now seated beside the table, her child asleep in her arms.
He laid the deed of gift he had made out before her as he spoke, and put a pen between her fingers.
She lifted her eyes to his with a look of wild anguish fit to move a heart of stone.
He simply pointed to the unconscious babe.
She looked at it, seized the pen, hurriedly scrawled a name at the foot of the deed, and fell back fainting.
But the shrill whistle of the locomotive and the thunder of the train close at hand aroused her.
“We must go now; let me take her,” Mrs. Kemper was saying in tones tremulous with great compassion. “I will love her dearly, dearly; I will cherish her as the apple of my eye. Let me wrap this warm shawl around her.”
“No, Dolly, I’ll carry her,” Mr. Kemper said, in a tone of half-suppressed delight, as he finished buttoning up his overcoat after safely depositing the note-book, with the deed of gift, in an inner pocket.
But silently the mother put them both aside. There was agony in her wan, emaciated face. She could not speak for the choking in her throat; but she strained the child to her heart, laid her cold white cheek to its warm and rosy face and kissed it passionately again and again.