“Oh!” said Mary, meditatively, as she laid her head upon his breast, and played with the buttons on his coat, “that’s it, is it? I reckon you’ll have to go without. Why don’t you buy a little girl with hair just like mine? Then you’d have heaps of curls instead of a teeny one.”
“Ah, but the trouble is, there are no little girls to buy.”
Mary’s mouth made a round O, while she looked at the doctor and then at Victoria, who was amusedly listening. “I—I am afraid you don’t always speak the truth,” she said, after a pause, “and mamma says that’s extremely naughty. You carried a baby to Myrtle Bradley’s house the other day, and one to Dorothy Lane’s. Why didn’t you keep one for yourself?”
“But they were both boys, Mary, and boys, you know, don’t have such nice hair as girls.”
“Oh!” again said Mary. Then, after a pause, she drew the doctor’s ear close to her rosebud mouth and whispered confidentially: “Don’t let mamma hear, but do you know, every night when I go to bed, I thank God that you did not bring a boy to mamma instead of me. I should not like to have been born a boy.”
The doctor roared, and looked at Victoria, who had heard the loud whisper, but his face quickly sobered as he saw her agitation.
“Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings,” she quoted. “Oh! God, I too, thank thee for this precious gift, which was not born a boy, who might have lived to curse the author of his being.” She rose hurriedly and left the room, while the doctor gazed after her with a deep sorrow in his eyes.
CHAPTER VI.
The next few days were quiet dreamy ones to the invalid. Not much conversation was allowed in his room, and he did not seem inclined to talk. To watch Victoria as she glided silently about performing the usual duties, was happiness enough for him. There was a world of enduring patient love in his eyes, as they followed her every motion. His thoughts were always of her. “Was there ever woman so noble, so forgiving? If he had loved her in the days gone by, what was this feeling which now thrilled him whenever she laved his face or touched his hand? It was as if the hand of an angel had been laid upon him.” He felt purified, exhilarated, free from all sin. Her calm spirituelle face soothed and quieted him. He longed to utter what was in his mind; to tell her how sanctified she had become to him; to pray to her as a Catholic prays to his patron saint. Knowing his sin, knowing how he had deceived her, she did not turn from him in scorn and loathing, as any other woman would have done, but true to herself, compassionate, forgiving, she had stayed by him tenderly nursing him back to health and strength. He knew that to her never-ceasing care he owed his life, but not for a moment was he vain enough to attribute it to love for him. The love which was just springing up in her heart like a tender flower, must have been ruthlessly crushed when she knew of his base deception which had continued for so many years, and now that she knew Roger was living, her love would again return to him and rightfully, Andrew did not rebel at the thought. There could never be any more hatred for Roger in his heart. The noble conduct of this more than noble woman had forever dispelled it. Without a murmur he would resign her, content in knowing that she had forgiven him; content to worship her from afar, living over again the fragrant past, taking no hopes for the future for he could see none. The doctor had said that Roger’s days were numbered, but what of that, Victoria would never return to him who had ruined her life. Ah, no, her forebearance could not be expected to extend that far, and somehow the thought did not affect him, as it would have done before this sickness. His love for Victoria was purer, of a higher order than before. She seemed no longer a mortal but a being most celestial, and he would not have been at all surprised had he seen wings suddenly appear upon her form and Victoria soaring away into space far, far beyond his gaze.
Victoria was conscious of Andrew’s eyes following her every motion, and she strove to curb the strong passion which at times threatened to master her. She longed to cast herself beside him; to confess the overpowering influence which drew her to him despite her will; to tell him that now, God pity her, she loved him with a strength, a passion, which was as deep as his own, and that the man upstairs, who should be all in all to her, was nothing, nothing, nor ever would be. She cared for him less than she cared for Mary, and in the same maternal way; but for the man who had sinned so grievously against her and her child; who had not hesitated to commit a crime which if known meant years of imprisonment; for this man, guilty though he might be, she was willing to suffer anything, rather than be separated from him. And why was it so? That she was unable to explain even to herself. She only knew that so it was, incredible as it might seem to anybody who had never been tempted in like manner. To save the man she loved she resolved to keep Roger in imprisonment, whatever might be the cost, and to let things go on as before. She felt a satisfaction in the thought that in so doing her guilt would be equal to Andrew’s. Therefore one could not reproach the other.