"Poor child!" The words were wrung from Ruth's heart,—the first words of real tenderness that she had ever spoken to this woman.
Again there came that strange new look into Irene's eyes.
"I'm sorry that I hated you."—Page 354.
"You are a good woman," she said slowly. "I am sorry that I hated you. Let me talk now, and tell you about it. I have got to! I ought not to have married that man; I never pretended even to him that I loved him. I married to get rid of dulness and restraint, and to go to Europe. I was a young fool! I got rid of nothing, and instead of feeling only indifference for him I learned to hate him. He was a drunkard, and I hated him for that. Then—I did not like the baby. You can't quite control your horror of that, can you? I don't wonder, now that I have learned what mother-love really is. I could almost hate myself for having such a feeling. You think a mother couldn't—but she can. I turned from the child, just as I had from the father, in disgust. Even so early in her life she looked like him, and I hated him. He was a weak man, and I never had any patience with weakness. Sometimes he was maudlin and loving, and then I hated him worst of all. One day I went away from him and stayed away. That was all I did. Oh, yes, I got a divorce; that was because I hated his name. At first I meant to do something for the child, I didn't know what,—he worshipped the baby,—and then I heard that it died; and I did not know until years afterward that it lived; but it was too late then to do anything. By that time I had met Erskine and discovered what love really meant. Oh, to think how I have loved him! and I have struggled and planned and lied to keep his love! I have even prayed to keep it! and now it is all over!"
"Irene," said her listener, firmly. "If you persist in talking, I shall have to send for Erskine. You must swallow this sedative and then lie still and let me talk. I will say in just a minute all I want to, and then we will both be quiet and you will try to sleep, for Erskine's sake. It isn't all over; it is just beginning. We cannot undo the past, but we can make another thing of the present—and the future. I promise you, before God, and call on Him to witness, that I will never by word or look reveal to Erskine one word of what we have said or of what I know, unless you tell me to do so. When you are well and strong again, you will decide how much or how little you want to tell him. God will show you what is right and you will want to do right; I am sure of it. And we will love each other, you and I, and help each other. Two women who love one man as you and I love Erskine Burnham should be very much to each other. Now I am not going to say another word."
She bent her head and kissed the sick woman on her forehead—her first voluntary caress.
Irene, who had closed her eyes and was death-like in her stillness, opened them again and looked steadily at her. Then she said with slow conviction in her tones:—
"You are a good woman."