He turned from her abruptly. She could see that he was not only sorely perplexed but hurt; in his hour of deepest need his mother seemed to have failed him.
It was a bitter hour for her. Yet she felt that she must be right. Would any one but a fiend go to Erskine now with the story of his wife's long years of living a lie! If her duty elsewhere were but as clear as this! Could it be that this was what was preying upon Irene and causing that retrograde movement? Had her long-sluggish conscience awakened at last? Was she perhaps ignorant of the fate of her daughter? Was she afraid that her former husband was still living, and that he and Erskine might, sometime, meet? Who could tell what questions of horror and terror were struggling in her tired brain and wearing out her weakened body?
Ought she—the woman who knew the whole dread story, knew many details that the sick one did not—ought she to be the surgeon to probe that wound? To be able to talk about it all might help. And yet—who could tell? The knowledge that her husband's mother knew every detail of that life which had been so carefully hidden from them, might be the last shock to that already overcharged brain.
Oh, to be sure of her duty! She told herself that she would perform it at any cost, she would shrink from nothing, now, if she could but be sure of the way. Well, why should she not be sure? Where was her Father? What was that promise: "Thine ears shall hear a word behind thee saying: 'This is the way, walk ye in it.'"
Sleep did not come to her that night, but perhaps she was given a strength that was better. She spent much of the time on her knees beside the quietly sleeping baby; and though, when morning came, she was not sure which way she was to turn that day, "whether to the right hand or the left," she found her mind repeating the words: "In quietness and confidence shall be your strength."
The day passed without marked changes of any sort. Erskine comforted himself with the belief that Irene was a trifle stronger. He told his mother that Dr. Sutherland was coming out to see her on the following day. The great nerve specialist could not get away from the city before that time. Irene heard of his expected visit with the same air of indifference that she had exhibited toward all things of late. She lay very quiet most of the day, and at evening made no objection whatever to Erskine's going to an important conference with his firm.
No sooner was he gone than she herself proposed that Rebecca go at that time to the kitchen to superintend the making of a new kind of food for her, instead of waiting until morning.
"I might want to try it in the night," she said, "and I don't need any further attention at present. Mother will stay with me."
This looked like deliberate planning. Irene had never before, of her own will, arranged to spend five minutes alone with her mother-in-law. That astonished woman while hastening to agree to the proposition, made a swift mental claim upon the promise: "Thine ears shall hear a word behind thee saying, This is the way."
It was Irene who began conversation as soon as the door closed after Rebecca. But the topic she chose was a new astonishment.