Part 52 (1/2)

The fixedness with which she eyed the child, though the blood was streaming from her forehead and bathing with a still deeper red her burned and blistered arms, made Mr. Sylvester's sympathetic heart beat.

Turning to the silent figure of Holt, he touched him on the arm and said with a gesture in her direction:

”You have not deceived the woman? That is really her own child that lies there?”

The man beside him, started, looked up with slowly comprehending eyes, and mechanically bowed his head. ”Yes,” a.s.sented he, and relapsed into his former heavy silence.

Mr. Sylvester touched him again. ”If it is hers, how came she not to know it? How could you manage to deceive such a woman as that?”

Holt started again and muttered, ”She was sick and insensible. She never saw the baby; I sent it away, and when she came to herself, told her it was dead. We had become tired of each other long before, and only needed the breaking of this bond to separate us. When she saw me again, it was with another woman at my side and an infant in my arms. The child was weakly and looked younger than he was. She thought it her rival's and I did not undeceive her.” And the heavy head again fell forward, and nothing disturbed the sombre silence of the room but the low unvarying moan of the wretched mother, ”My baby, my baby, my own, own baby!”

Mr. Sylvester moved over to her side. ”Jacqueline,” said he, ”the child is dead and you yourself are very much hurt. Won't you let these good women lay you on a bed, and do what they can to bind up your poor blistered arms?”

But she heard him no more than the wind's blowing. ”My baby,” she moaned, ”my own, own baby!”

He drew back with a troubled air. Grief like this he could understand but knew not how to alleviate. He was just on the point of beckoning forward one of the many women cl.u.s.tered in the door-way, when there came a sound from without that made him start, and in another moment a young man had stepped hastily into the room, followed by a girl, who no sooner saw Mr. Sylvester, than she bounded forward with a sudden cry of joy and relief.

”Bertram! Paula! What does this mean? What are you doing here?”

A burst of sobs from the agitated girl was her sole reply.

”Such a night! such a place!” he exclaimed, throwing his arm about Paula with a look that made her tremble through her tears. ”Were you so anxious about me, little one?” he whispered. ”Would not your fears let you rest?”

”No, no; and we have had such a dreadful time since we got here. The house where we expected to find you, is on fire, and we thought of nothing else but that you had perished within it. But finally some one told us to come here, and--” She paused horror-stricken; her eyes had just fallen upon the little dead child and the moaning mother.

”That is Jacqueline j.a.pha,” whispered Mr. Sylvester. ”We have found her, only to close her eyes, I fear.”

”Jacqueline j.a.pha!” Paula's hands unclosed from his arm.

”She was in the large tenement house that burned first; that is her child whose loss she is mourning.”

”Jacqueline j.a.pha!” again fell with an indescribable tone from Paula's lips. ”And who is that?” she asked, turning and indicating the silent figure by the wall.

”That is Roger Holt, the man who should have been her husband.”

”Oh, I remember him,” she cried; ”and her, I remember her, and the little child too. But,” she suddenly exclaimed, ”she told me then that she was not his mother.”

”And she did not know that she was; the man had deceived her.”

With a quick thrill Paula bounded forward. ”Jacqueline j.a.pha,” she cried, falling with outstretched hands beside the poor creature; ”thank G.o.d you are found at last!”

But the woman was as insensible to this cry as she had been to all others. ”My baby,” she wailed, ”my baby, my own, own baby!”

Paula recoiled in dismay, and for a moment stood looking down with fear and doubt upon the fearful being before her. But in another instant a heavenly instinct seized her, and ignoring the mother, she stooped over the child and tenderly kissed it. The woman at once woke from her stupor. ”My baby!” she cried, s.n.a.t.c.hing the child up in her arms with a gleam of wild jealousy; ”n.o.body shall touch it but me. I killed it and it is all mine now!” But in a moment she had dropped the child back into its place, and was going on with the same set refrain that had stirred her lips from the first.

Paula was not to be discouraged. Laying her hand on the child's brow, she gently smoothed back his hair, and when she saw the old gleam returning to the woman's countenance, said quietly, ”Are you going to carry it to Grotewell to be buried? Margery Hamlin is waiting for you, you know?”

The start which shook the woman's haggard frame, encouraged her to proceed.