“Oh, God!” groaned Bertha, it was a cry of despair. And then she burst into passionate weeping.
Her sobs were terrible, uncontrollable; it was her life that she was weeping away, her hope of happiness, all her desires and dreams. Her heart seemed breaking. She put her hands to her eyes, with a gesture of utter agony.
“Then I went through it all for nothing.... Oh, Eddie, you don’t know the frightful pain of it—all night I thought I should die.... I would have given anything to be put out of my suffering. And it was all useless.”
She sobbed still more irresistibly, quite crushed by the recollection of what she had gone through, and its futility.
“Oh, I wish I could die.”
The tears were in Edward’s eyes, and he kissed her hands.
“Don’t give way, darling,” he said, searching in vain for words to console her. His voice faltered and broke.
“Oh, Eddie,” she said, “you’re suffering just as much as I am. I forgot.... Let me see him now.”
Dr. Ramsay made a sign to the nurse, and she fetched the dead child. She carried it to the bedside and showed it to Bertha.
Bertha said nothing, and at last turned away; the nurse withdrew. Bertha’s tears now had ceased, but her mouth was set into a hopeless woe.