"Con's all gone to pieces, you know—at the old mill house—no money—no one to care for him. We wanted you to come out with us. Perhaps medical care might, even now—We thought maybe," he interrupted himself hastily, "that you could get Lisbeth to help out too—and maybe come herself—"
"Come herself!" I repeated, and my voice must have sounded the sick fear that struck me.
"Money's not the only thing that counts when it comes to one's own blood," he said sententiously.
There were no two ways about it, that was his final stand. So, having assumed them of my services that afternoon, I went straight to Lisbeth.
I found her bending over the youngest baby, and, when I told her, her body became rigid for an instant, then she stooped lower that I might not see the shadow that had fallen across her face. Finally she left the child and came to me with that old look of misery in her face that I had not seen there for so long, but with far more gentleness.
"Sit down here, Tom," she said, leading me to the window seat, where the strands of sunlight struck against her head, giving fire to her dull-brown hair. She had changed but slightly in appearance, I thought, from the girl that I had known five years before; still there was a change, a certain assurance was there, and a graciousness that came from the knowledge that she was loved.
"I think you know," she began, her eyes looking not at me but straight ahead, "that I've been happy—these five years—though perhaps not how happy. But in spite of it all—there is always that something—that fear here—clutching at me—that it may not all be real—that it can't last."
Again she looked at me and turned away, but not before I had caught a flash of terror in her eyes.
"Even with them all against me, Tom, I've stuck to it—to what I feel is my right. This is my home—and it's Jim's home—and the children's as well as it's mine—and, in a way, it's—inviolate. I've sworn that nothing ugly shall come into it—nothing shall ruin it—the way our lives were ruined out there!"
Her voice trembled, but her eyes, as she turned to me at the last, were steady.