"The baby—his baby—his horrible baby!"
"Gerry darling! Gerry dearest! do think...." His puzzled eyes, bloodshot in his white face, turned full upon her; but he remained silent, waiting to hear more. "You have forgotten, darling," she said quietly.
His free hand that lay on the coverlid clenched, and a spasm caught his arm, as though it longed for something to strike or strangle. "No, no!" said he; "I am all right. I mean that damned monster's baby. There was a baby?" His voice shook on these last words as though he, too, had a fear for his own reason. His face flushed as he awaited her reply.
"Oh, Gerry darling! but you have forgotten. His baby was Sally—my Sallykin!"
For it was absolutely true that, although he had as complete a knowledge, in a certain sense, of Sally's origin as the well-coached student has of the subject he is to answer questions in, he had forgotten it under the stress of his mental trial as readily as the student forgets what his mind has only acquiesced in for its purpose, in his joy at recovering his right to ignorance. Sally had an existence of her own quite independent of her origin. She was his and Rosalind's—a part of their existence, a necessity. It was easy and natural for him to dissociate the living, breathing reality that filled so much of their lives from its mere beginnings. It was less easy for Rosalind, but not an impossibility altogether, helped by the forgiveness for the past that grew from the soil of her daughter's love.
"You had forgotten, dear," she repeated; "but you know now."
"Yes, I had forgotten, because of Sally herself; but she is my daughter now...."
She waited, expecting him to say more; but he did not speak again. As soon as he was, or seemed to be, asleep, she rose quietly and left him.
She was so anxious that no trace of the tempest that had passed over her should be left for Sally to see in the morning that she got as quickly as possible to bed; and, with a little effort to tranquillise her mind, soon sank into a state of absolute oblivion. It was the counterswing of the pendulum—Nature's protest against a strain beyond her powers to bear, and its remedy.