“I'm not lying, Miss Kilburn,” he answered. “You've done a very unwarrantable thing in both of the cases that you sent to the seaside on your own responsibility. One of them I certainly shouldn't have advised sending, but it's turned out well. You've no more credit for it, though, than for this that died; and you won't think I'm lying, perhaps, when I say you're equally to blame in both instances.”
“I—I beg your pardon,” she faltered, with dawning comfort in his severity. “I didn't mean—I didn't intend to say—”
“I know it,” said Dr. Morrell, allowing himself to smile. “Just remember that you blundered into doing the only thing left to be done for Mrs. Savor's child; and—don't try it again. That's all.”
He smiled once more, and at some permissive light in her face, he began even to laugh.
“You—you're horrible!”
“Oh no, I'm not,” he gasped. “All the tears in the world wouldn't help; and my laughing hurts nobody. I'm sorry for you, and I'm sorry for the mother; but I've told you the truth—I have indeed; and you must believe me.”
The child's father came to see her the next night. “Rebecca she seemed to think that you felt kind of bad, may be, because Maria wouldn't speak to you when she first got off the cars yesterday, and I don't say she done exactly right, myself. The way I look at it, and the way I tell Maria she'd ought to, is like this: You done what you done for the best, and we wa'n't obliged to take your advice anyway. But of course Maria she'd kind of set her heart on savin' it, and she can't seem to get over it right away.” He talked on much longer to the same effect, tilted back in his chair, and looking down, while he covered and uncovered one of his knees with his straw hat. He had the usual rustic difficulty in getting away, but Annie was glad to keep him, in her gratitude for his kindness. Besides, she could not let him go without satisfying a suspicion she had.
“And Dr. Morrell—have you seen him for Mrs. Savor—have you—” She stopped, for shame of her hypocrisy.
“No, 'm. We hain't seen him sence. I guess she'll get along.”
It needed this stroke to complete her humiliation before the single-hearted fellow.