I had never before been in a house where a confinement was taking place; I do not wish to repeat the experience. Whenever I carried up a meal, Lady Loring or the trained nurse would say vaguely, "I'm afraid she's having a bad time," but for the rest I was left to myself in the great silent library with my senses strained to catch any sound from the familiar white bedroom where I had spent so many days with Sonia, trying to distract her thoughts. O'Rane, from the moment when he telephoned for the doctor, had been with her. There was some ineffectual attempt to banish him from the room, but Lady Loring afterwards let him stay and admitted that his personality was keeping Sonia from the surrender which she sometimes seemed ready to make.
When he came into the library at breakfast-time on the second day, his clothes were shapeless and dusty, his face unshaven and grey with fatigue.
"The doctor says it's a boy," he told me hoarsely. "Is there any water in the room? I've had nothing to eat or drink since first I went up there; and then I must get some air into my lungs."
He sighed and dropped limply on to a sofa.
"How's Sonia?" I asked him.
"They can't say yet. She's doped. They've given her as much as they dare, as much as her heart will stand.... My God! I'm glad I'm not a woman! I can understand their having one child, because they don't know what's in store for them, but their courage in having a second ...!"
I poured him out a cup of coffee and buttered him two slices of toast.
"I wouldn't try to talk overmuch," I told him.
"It's a bit of a relief to me," he answered with a smile. "All this time——" He lifted his right hand above his head and began stiffly to open and shut the fingers. "I was gripping her wrist," he explained; "I only let go twice, and the first time it was bruised purple, as if she'd shut it in a door.... And nobody said anything.... Sonia kept getting spasms of pain which made her moan or cry out, and her nerve gave way from time to time ... and then I—I tried to hypnotise her, I found that by repeating 'Sonia, Sonia, Sonia' very distinctly and very low, I could capture her mind.... God! how it got on my nerves!"