“What! You have more than one?” The poor girl was really horrified.
“Oh, several. I don’t just remember how many. I quarrelled with one because we couldn’t agree over the name we would give the first baby. I broke it off with another because her stomach made such funny noises every time I tried to squeeze her. It made me nervous. But Gwendolin—I must tell you about her. I was very ill with diphtheria in a lonely house by the sea, and she had come to nurse me. She would let no one else come near me, and she waited on me night and day.”
(Anastasia suspended operations on the heel of my sock she was darning.)
“She was a nervous, high-strung girl, and she watched over me with an agony of care. There was a doctor, too, who came twice a day, yet, in spite of all, I hourly grew more weak. My dreary moans seemed to be echoed by the hollow moans of the sea.”
(Anastasia seemed divided between resentment of Gwendolin and pity for me.)
“Well, the poor girl was almost worn to a shadow, and one night, as she sat by me, pale and hollow-eyed, I saw a sudden change come over her.
“‘I can stand it no longer,’ she cried. ‘His every moan pierces me to the heart. I must do something, something.’
“Then she rose, and I was conscious of her great, pitiful eyes. Suddenly I thrilled with horror, for I realised that they were the eyes of a mad woman. The strain of nursing had unhinged her mind.
“‘The doctor tells me there is no hope,’ she went on. ‘Oh, I cannot bear to hear him suffer so; I must give him peace;—but how?’
“On a table near by there was a small pair of scissors. She took them up thoughtfully.