“Robert doesn’t approve!”
“Robert doesn’t count. He is an echo of Jean. He judges you from her standpoint.”
“If you get tired of me, Piers, you have promised to speak!”
“I’ve sworn it. I’ll swear it again, ten thousand times over. Does one grow tired of the sun?”
Then Vanna would abandon argument and talk delicious nonsense, and tell herself a hundred times over that, come what might, she was the happiest, the most blessed of women, to have gained the heaven of Piers Rendall’s love.
The days drifted past, quiet and peaceful except for the growing fear about Jean. The doctor shook his head, pronounced her condition “not normal,” and Robert, though invariably cheerful in his wife’s presence, grew haggard with suspense. And then suddenly, some weeks before it was expected, came the end—a ghastly day, a day of hasty comings and goings, of urgent summons for further help, of anguish of body for Jean, and for those who loved her, the mental anguish of sitting still hour after hour waiting with trembling for the verdict of life or death.
It was four o’clock in the morning, the soft grey dawn of a summer’s day, when at last the waiting ended. The doctor opened the door of the den, and faced Robert’s hungry eyes.
“It is all over, Mr Gloucester. Your wife is coming round. She is young, and has a good constitution. I think she will pull through. She is very low—that is only to be expected; but we have nature on our side, and must hope for the best. Unfortunately, circumstances are not so favourable for her recovery as one could wish. I regret to say that in spite of all our care we could not save the child. A fine boy! I deeply regret; but you will be thankful that your wife is spared.”
The tears flooded Robert’s eyes, but they were tears of joy, not grief. At that moment he had no room in his mind for the little son whom he had never seen. After the blackness of those hours when he had seen a vision of life without Jean, he could do nothing but rejoice and thank God.
But Vanna’s heart contracted with a spasm of sympathy. Poor Jean! Poor Jean! What a bitter awakening would be hers!