She was rather absent and full of the question when she got down to tea, and Mrs. Fellowes, as a sort of cure and antidote to her wistful aloofness, went and brought the baby. And then Mr. Waring came in and contemplated it silently, as he had done every day since it was born.
Gwen told them of Hopkins, and in a rather shy tentative way spoke of her project.
To her astonishment Mr. Waring woke up fully, and spoke with hearty approval of it, then without giving her a chance to reply, he went out but soon returned with a large parcel of manuscript, tied up laboriously with string, the knots all over it in haphazard style.
“This is the book,” he said slowly, and with frequent pauses, “on which we have worked so long, it is at last complete. It is sad, is it not, that it is only I, who am here to see the end? I have been more than once afraid that I should be unable to finish it, it is hard to work alone, old habits are strong within us—I will attempt no new work.”
He swayed a little and leaned heavily on the table. “You, my daughter, have your work here, you must uphold the house of your husband and of his first-born; to-morrow I will go home.”
Gwen attempted to say something, but he motioned her to silence.
“You may perhaps think your duty is with me, it is not, it is here, and here you must remain to guard your husband’s lands, and to cherish his child. It is the soul that is just entering life that needs all your care, not that which is done with it.”
Then he went and stood over the child, and suddenly some vague old feeling surged up in him and he raised his hands that trembled above its head, and his lips were moved by a mute blessing.
Mrs. Fellowes intended going herself early that week as she was a good deal wanted at home, but she could not bring herself to leave Gwen entirely alone, and then she had not heard a word of Humphrey from his wife’s lips for more than a month now, and his letters to her, after one she got assuring her of his perfect recovery, were anything but satisfactory, they were short and dry and told her nothing. Then, as the missionary he was in pursuit of, had escaped through the intervention of a tribe of friendly blacks some other way, and was already on his way home, probably preparing his experiences for the religious press, Humphrey’s continued presence in Africa was simply ridiculous, and she was in a fever of anxiety as to the next step of this most trying couple.
A few nights after, she was very glad she had decided to remain.