"Hiding----"
He pointed toward the closet.
"What have you been putting away there every night for the last few
weeks? What is in that closet now?"
Miriam Challoner hesitated. When she found her voice, she asked
tremblingly:--
"Do you really want to know?"
"Yes," he answered in the same tone.
Miriam stepped to the closet, fumbled there among some things, and
returning thrust something into his hands.
"There," she said, blushing.
Challoner held it up, looked at it a moment, finally he said, with just
a tinge of suspicion in his voice:--
"This tiny dress--what?" He looked at his wife stupidly, and after a
time, he added: "Why, Miriam, you never told me.... A little child for
you and me?"
"Yes, Laurie," she whispered softly.
Challoner was visibly affected. For an instant he held the infinitesimal
garment up before him; then acting upon a sudden impulse, he cuddled it
down into the crook of his arm and held it there.
"A child--for me," he mused, and suddenly passed the dress back to her,
but as suddenly he held out his hands for it again, saying: "Give it
back to me!" After a moment, he looked up and exclaimed: "I wonder if it
is given to mere man to appreciate thoroughly the anticipation of
motherhood--the hours that are given to fashioning little garments like
this, for instance! And yet it seems to me now that I could work forever
for--" he broke off abruptly, quite overcome.
Miriam was deeply touched.
"Never fear, dear, there will be plenty of responsibility for you later
on."