“You must not be vexed that I came first by myself,” Miss Bethune said. “To bring Dora without her father’s knowledge is a strong step.”
“But I have a right—I have a right!” cried the sick woman. “Nobody—not even he—could deny me a sight of her. I’ve hungered for years for a sight of her, and now that I am free I am going to die.”
“No, no! don’t say that,” said Miss Bethune, with the natural instinct of denying that conclusion. “You must not let your heart go down, for that is the worst of all.”
“It is perhaps the best, too,” said the patient. “What could I have done? Always longing for her, never able to have her except by stealth, frightened always that she would find out, or that he should find out. Oh, no, it’s better as it is. Now I can provide for my dear, and nobody to say a word. Now I can show her how I love her. And she will not judge me. A child like that doesn’t judge. She will learn to pity her poor, poor —— Oh, why didn’t you bring me my Dora? I may not live another day.”
In the darkness, to which her eyes gradually became accustomed, Miss Bethune consulted silently with a look the attendant by the bed; and receiving from her the slight, scarcely distinguishable, answer of a shake of the head, took the sufferer’s hand, and pressed it in her own.
“I will bring her,” she said, “to-night, if you wish it, or to-morrow. I give you my word. If you think of yourself like that, whether you are right or not, I am not the one to disappoint you. To-night, if you wish it.”
“Oh, to-night, to-night! I’ll surely live till to-night,” the poor woman cried.
“And many nights more, if you will only keep quite quiet, ma’am. It depends upon yourself,” said the maid.
“They always tell you,” said Mrs. Bristow, “to keep quiet, as if that was the easiest thing to do. I might get up and walk all the long way to see my child; but to be quiet without her—that is what is impossible—and knowing that perhaps I may never see her again!”
“You shall—you shall,” said Miss Bethune soothingly. “But you have a child, and a good child—a son, or as like a son as possible.”