“You remember I took your letter and did not give it to him, but told him what I pleased. Have you ever told him the truth?”
Edith could not so much as articulate the one word no, and when, as she continued silent, her mother’s eyes unclosed and looked inquiringly at her, she only shook her head in token that she had not.
“Then you must do it now! There’s no other way. You’ll need his co-operation,” Mrs. Barrett said, and Edith’s eyes were like flaming coals of fire as they confronted her so steadily.
“Edith,” her mother went on, “do you remember the dreary room in Dorset Street, and the day it rained so hard?”
Did she remember it? Ask rather if she ever could forget it, when, even now, after the lapse of so many years, she never heard the sound of rain against the windows or saw it falling in the street, that she did not recall that dreadful day of fog and rain and darkness when her child was taken from her. But she could not speak, and her mother continued:
“I took the baby from you and carried her to the hospital, and then, when you insisted upon going after her, I went in your place, and when I came back I told you,—oh, Edith, don’t look at me, don’t curse me yet. I told you sh-she,—sh-she——”
“You told me she was dead. Was that a lie, too?”
Edith could speak now, though the effort to do so almost tore open her throat, where her heart seemed palpitating so wildly. Seizing her mother’s shoulder she shook it fiercely as she put the question:
“Was that a lie, too?”
“Yes, Edith, that was a lie, too!”