"Shall I not go on?" I finally asked.
"Give me a minute," was her low entreaty. "O God! O God! that I should
have thought myself secure all these years, with two in the world
knowing my fatal secret!"
"I learned it by accident," I went on, when I saw her eye turn again on
mine. "On a certain night six years ago, I was in the office behind an
old curtain--you remember the curtain hanging at the left of the
doctor's table over that break in the book-shelves. I had no business
there. I had been meddling with things which did not belong to me and,
when I heard the doctor's step at the door, was glad to shrink into this
refuge and wait for an opportunity to escape. It did not come very soon.
First he had one patient, then another. The last one was you; I heard
your name and caught a glimpse of your face as you went out. It was a
very interesting story you told him--I was touched by it though I hardly
understood."
"Oh! oh!"
She was swaying from side to side, swaying so heavily that I
instinctively pushed forward a chair.
"Sit," I prayed. "You are not strong enough for this excitement."
She glanced at me vaguely, shook her head, but made no move toward
accepting the proffered chair. She submitted, however, when I continued
to press it upon her; and I felt less a brute and hard-hearted monster
when I saw her sitting with folded hands before me.
"I bring this up," said I, "that you may understand what I mean when I
say that some one else--another woman, in fact, may feel her claim upon
this child greater than yours."
"You mean the real mother. Is she known? The doctor swore--"
"I do not know the real mother. I only know that you are not; that to
win some toleration from your mother-in-law, to make sure of your
husband's lasting love, you won the doctor over to a deception which
secured a seeming heir to the Ocumpaughs. Whose child was given you, is
doubtless known to you--"
"No, no."