"He surely couldn't take your boy," cried Pearl. "There is no justice in that."
"Only the unmarried mother has the absolute right to her child," said Annie Gray, as one who quotes from a legal document. "I talked to a lawyer whom Mr. Bowen sent for. He showed it to me in the law."
"Peter Neelands was right," said Pearl after a while, "it is exactly the sort of a law he said the other one was."
The two women sat by the fire, which by this time was reduced to one tiny red coal. There was not a sound in the house except the regular breathing of little Jim from the adjoining room. A night wind stirred the big tree in front of the house, and its branches touched the shingles softly, like a kind hand.
"I'll tell you the rest of it, Pearl, and why I am so frightened. Perhaps I grow fearful, living here alone, and my mind conjures up dreadful things. Jim's grandfather has moved to this Province from the East. I read about him in the papers. He is a powerful man—who gets his own way. He might be able to get doctors to pronounce me insane—we read such things. He has such influence."
"Who is he?" asked Pearl wonderingly.
"He is the Premier of this Province," said Annie Gray. "Now do you wonder at my fear?"
Pearl sat a long time silent. "A way will be found," she said.