"Why? How?" she demanded, surprised by my tone.
"Because I never could have hurt him."
"Hurt him!" she exclaimed, gathering him up in her arms. "Do you mean that I could hurt him! hurt my baby! Oh!" She got up and stood looking at me indignantly for a few seconds with the child's face hidden against her neck; and then she rang the bell sharply, and sent him away.
"What do you mean, Don?" she said, when we were alone together again.
"Tell me? You would not say a cruel thing like that for nothing."
"I am referring to that night before he was born," I said, taking the little bottle from my pocket. This seems to me to have been the cruellest operation that I have ever had to perform.
"O Don!" she cried, greatly distressed. "I understand I should have killed him. But why, why do you remind me of that now?"
"I want to be quite sure that you have learnt what a mistaken notion that was, and that you regret the impulse."
She sat down on a low chair before the fire, with her elbows on her knees and her face buried in her hands, and remained so for some time. She wanted to think it out, and tell me exactly.
"I do not feel any regret," she said at last. "I would not do the same thing now, but it is only because I am not now occupied with the same thoughts. They have fallen into the background of my consciousness, and I no longer perceive the utility of self-sacrifice."
"But do you not perceive the sin of suicide?"