She was buttoning her gloves as she turned toward her mother, but stopped suddenly, struck by the expression of the face which met her eyes, and which she knew meant so much.
“Do nothing of the kind. Are you crazy, girl? Never allude to the child, if you wish to be happy.”
Mrs. Barrett spoke rapidly and excitedly; and with a nameless terror of some threatened danger, Edith asked:
“Why, mother? Why not mention the child to-day, when he said, ask what I pleased? Why must I not?”
“Because—because—” and Mrs. Barrett came close to her and whispered: “He don’t know there was a child. I did not tell him that.”
“Don’t know there was a child!” Edith repeated. “What do you mean? I wrote it in the letter,—all, everything; if he read it he knows about my baby. Moth——! Moth——!”
She could not say the whole name,—could not articulate another word, for the awful suspicion which flashed upon her, bringing back the hand which clutched her in a death-like grasp, and made her writhe and gasp for breath.
“Edith, listen to me;” and Mrs. Barrett spoke sternly. “It is time this folly ended. Do you think I would let you throw away the chance for which I had waited so long? Had Colonel Schuyler known the truth as you wrote it, he would not have married you, and as your mother it was my duty to interfere and save you from the consequences of your rashness. I kept your letter, and told him what I liked. I said you were in love when very young,—scarcely fifteen,—that the object of your love was greatly your inferior, and that I opposed the affair—that in spite of all you were secretly engaged, and would have been married, no doubt, had he not been suddenly killed. I told him, too, that the manner of his death was a fearful shock to your nerves, from which you had not yet recovered, as you now sometimes felt a choking sensation in your throat when reminded of the past, and asked him never to refer to it if he wished to spare you pain. He promised he would not. He did not ask the name of the young man, nor where he lived; indeed, he was not at all anxious to discuss the matter, and stopped me before I was quite done by telling me he had heard enough, and that he was satisfied. I think, however, he was annoyed, and you can judge what would have been the result had I given him your letter. Believe me, I acted for the best, and though you can now tell him, if you like, I trust you have too much good sense to do so, or at least will take time to consider. You are his wife; nothing can alter that, and the past cannot in any way affect him, provided he knows nothing of it. To tell him now would be to wound him cruelly, and my advice to you is to let the matter rest, and take the good offered to you.”
Edith made no reply. Indeed, she could not have spoken to have saved her life for the choking, palpitating sensation in her throat, where her heart seemed beating wildly with such throbs of pain as she had never felt before. Gradually as her mother talked she had sank down upon the couch where she lay in a crumpled heap, her face as white as ashes, and her eyes staring wildly like the eyes of one choking to death. And when at last she spoke, it was only in a whisper that she said:
“Oh, mother, you make me wish I was dead.”