Part 73 (2/2)

It was evident Lorraine was very ill indeed and needing the utmost care.

During the day she seemed to grow steadily worse, and she could not bear Hal out of her sight.

”I don't know whether you are shocked or not,” she said to her once, ”but if everything goed all right I shall not regret what I have done for one moment. I wanted something more real for the rest of my life than I have had in its beginning.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. ”I wanted his child to live for.”

With a caressing hand on the sick woman's, Hal asked in a low voice:

”Why isn't he here taking care of you now? Where is you child's father?”

A swift surprise pa.s.sed through Lorraine's eyes, as if it had not occured to her Hal would not know the truth. Then she said, very softly, ”Alymer.”

”Ah!”

The exclamation seemed wrung from Hal unconsciously, and after it her lips grew strangely rigid.

”Hal,” Lorraine said weakly, ”I've loved Alymer almost ever since I first saw him. I swore I would not harm his career, and I have not. I will not in future. But the child is his, and I thank G.o.d for it. I do not believe an illegitimate child with a devoted mother is any worse off than the legitimate child with a selfish, unloving one. That there is love enough matters the most. What can any child have better than a life's devotion?”

Later on she said:

”This is his great week, Hal. In his last letter he tells me his big chance has come at last through Sir Philip Hall. We always hoped it would. It is the big libel case, and if Sir Philip chooses he can let him take a very prominent part. He will, I am sure of it. He is very interested in him, and he has given him this chance on purpose. Flip thinks it will lead to a great deal; and of course if so it is splendid for him.”

Hal said very little. She was overcome at the revelation Lorraine had made, and seemed quite unable to grasp it.

Meanwhile she waited fearfully for the crisis the doctor had told her was impending. She was expecting him to call again, and was relieved when at last he arrived bringing a pleasant-faced French nurse with him.

She relinquished her post then, and waited for him anxiously downstairs. When he came he told her he must have another opinion at once, and Hal knew that something serious was wrong, and that he feared the worst.

The next morning, when she saw Lorraine again, she understood that they had saved her life, but probably only for a few days at the most.

Lorraine was almost too weak to speak, but she looked into Hal's eyes, and in her own there was a dumb imploring. Hal leant down and murmured:

”What is it, Lorry?... Do you want Alymer?”

”Yes,” was the faint whisper. ”I feel it is the end. I want so much to see him once more.”

”I will go to London myself, and fetch him,” Hal said, and a look of rest crept into the dying woman's eyes.

So it happened that the day before the great libel case Hal stood in Hermon's chambers, and delivered her message.

It was a tense moment - a moment of warring instincts, warring inclinations, conflicting fates. It was surely the very irony of ironies, that within sight of his goal, with all this woman had manoeuvred to give him almost in his hands, she should be the one to step suddenly between him and the realisation of everything his life had striven for.

To fail Sir Philip Hall at the eleventh hour, under such circ.u.mstance, could only mean an irreparable disaster. He would lose, as far as his profession was concerned, in every single way. It would strike a blow at his progress, from which it might never wholly recover.

No wonder, confronted with the sudden demand life had flung at him, he stood stock still, with rigid face, almost overcome by the swift sword-thrust of fate, and made no reply.

<script>