He stood looking at her in perplexity. At last he asked, “Could I see the child?”
“Certainly!” said Annie, with the lofty passion that possessed her, and she led him up into the chamber where Idella lay sleeping in Annie's own crib.
He stood beside it, gazing long at the little one, from whose eyes he shaded the lamp. Then he said, “I thank you,” and turned away.
She followed him down-stairs, and at the door she said: “You think I will not come; but I will come. Don't you believe that?”
He turned sadly from her. “You might come, but you couldn't stay. You don't know what it is; you can't imagine it, and you couldn't bear it.”
“I will come, and I will stay,” she answered; and when he was gone she fell into one of those intense reveries of hers—a rapture in which she prefigured what should happen in that new life before her. At its end Mr. Peck stood beside her grave, reading the lesson of her work to the multitude of grateful and loving poor who thronged to pay the last tribute to her memory. Putney was there with his wife, and Lyra regretful of her lightness, and Mrs. Munger repentant of her mendacities. They talked together in awe-stricken murmurs of the noble career just ended. She heard their voices, and then she began to ask herself what they would really say of her proposing to go to Fall River with the Savors and be a mill-hand.
XXVII.
Annie did not sleep. After lying a long time awake she took some of the tonic that Dr. Morrell had left her, upon the chance that it might quiet her; but it did no good. She dressed herself, and sat by the window till morning.
The breaking day showed her purposes grotesque and monstrous. The revulsion that must come, came with a tide that swept before it all prepossessions, all affections. It seemed as if the child, still asleep in her crib, had heard what she said, and would help to hold her to her word.