"Sometimes I did. Just for a while," I answered, feeling a little ashamed, and my tears rising.
"Ah!" he said, and then turning to the old doctor, "What a mother will do for her child, Conrad!"
The eyes of Doctor Conrad (which seemed to have become swollen) were still fixed on the face of his colleague, and, speaking as if he had forgotten that I was present with them in the room, he said:
"You think she's very ill, don't you?"
"We'll talk of that in your consulting-room," said the strange doctor.
Then, telling me to lie quiet and they would come back presently, he went downstairs and Martin's father followed him.
Nurse came up while they were away (she had taken possession of me during the last few days), and I asked her who were in the parlour-kitchen.
"Only Father Donovan and Mrs. Conrad—and baby," she told me.
Then the doctors came back—the consultant first, trying to look cheerful, and the old doctor last, with a slow step and his head down, as if he had been a prisoner coming back to court to receive sentence.
"My lady," said the strange doctor, "you are a brave woman if ever there was one, so we have decided to tell you the truth about your condition."