“Certain?” he broke out. “What certainty could she imagine she had? She is a bitter, frantic woman—a divorced woman—who jumped to the conclusion that pleased her, because it involved the humiliation of a rich man.”
He went on, his voice trembling with suppressed passion: “When you know the real truth, the thing becomes a nightmare. You, a delicate woman, lying here helpless—the victim of a cruel misfortune, and with the life of an afflicted infant depending upon your peace of mind. Your physicians planning day and night to keep you quiet, to keep the dreadful, unbearable truth from you——”
“Oh, what truth? That’s the terrifying thing—to know that people are keeping things from me! What was it they were keeping?”
“First of all, the fact that the baby was blind; and then the cause of it——”
“Then they do know the cause?”
“They don’t know positively—no one can know positively. But poor Dr. Perrin had a dreadful idea, that he had to hide from you because otherwise he could not bear to continue in your house——”
“Why, Douglas! What do you mean?”
“I mean that a few days before your confinement, he was called away to the case of a negro-woman—you knew that, did you not?”
“Go on.”
“He had the torturing suspicion that possibly he was not careful enough in sterilizing his instruments, and that he, your friend and protector, may be the man who is to blame.”