"It does me good to speak—at last. I've never spoken in all these years—and I can tell you. My child was born seven months after my husband's death. Louis Champney came to see me then—up here, in this room; it was the first time we had dared to see each other alone—but the baby lay beside me; that kept us. He said but little; but he took up the child and looked at him; then he turned to me. 'This should have been our son, Aurora,' he said, and I—oh, what will you think of me!" She dropped her head into her hands.
"I knew in my heart that during all those months I was carrying Warren Googe's child, I had only one thought: 'Oh, if it were only Louis' and mine!' And because I was a widow, I felt free to dwell upon that one thought night and day. Louis' face was always before me. I came in thought to look upon him as the true father of my boy—not that other for whom I had had no love. And I took great comfort in that thought—and—and—my boy is the living image of Louis Champney."
She withdrew her hands, clasping them nervously and rubbing them in each other.
"Oh, I sinned, I sinned in thought, and I've been punished, but there was never anything more—and last night I had to hear that from her!"
For a moment the look of deadly fear returned to the eyes, but only for a moment; her hands continued to work nervously.
"Never anything more; only that day when he took my boy in his arms and said what he did, we both knew we could not see much of each other for the rest of our lives—that's why I've kept so much to myself. He kissed the baby then, laid him in my arms and, stooping, kissed me once—only once—I've lived on that—and said: 'I will do all I can for this boy.' And—and"—her lips trembled for the first time—"that little baby, as it lay on my breast, saved us both. It was renunciation—but it made me hard; it killed Louis.
"I saw Louis seldom and always in the presence of my boy. But Almeda Champney was not satisfied with what she had done; she transferred her jealousy to my son. She was jealous of every word Louis spoke to him; jealous of every hour he was with him. When Louis died, still young—my son was left unprovided for. That was Almeda Champney's work—she wouldn't have it.
"Then I sold the first quarry for means to send Champney to college; and I sold the rest in order to start him well in business, in the world. But I know that at the bottom of my ambition for him, was the desire that he might succeed in spite of the fact that his aunt had kept from him the property which Louis Champney intended to be his. My ambition has been overweening for Champney's material success—I have urged him on, when I should have restrained. I have aided him to the extent of my ability to attain his end. I longed to see him in a position that, financially, would far out-shine hers. I felt it would compensate in part. I loved my son—and I loved in him Louis Champney. I alone am to blame for what has come of it—I—his mother."
Her lips trembled excessively. She waited to control them before she could continue.
"Last night, when I begged her to help me, she answered me with what I told you. I could bear no more—"