Louise stood in the doorway waiting for Chérie, and watched her coming
up the stairs rather slowly with fluttering breath. She drew her into
the room and shut the door.
Mireille sat quietly in her usual armchair by the window, with her small
face lifted to the sky.
"Chérie," said Louise, drawing the girl down beside her on the wide old
divan on which the little Whitakers had sprawled to learn their lessons
in years gone by. "I have something to say to you."
"I knew you had," exclaimed Chérie, flushing. "I knew it yesterday when
I saw you. It is good news!"
Louise hesitated. "Yes ... for me," she said falteringly, "it is good
news. For you, my dear little sister, for you ... unless you realize
what has befallen us--it may be very terrible news."
Chérie looked at her with startled eyes. "What do you mean?" she asked
under her breath.
Louise put her hand to her neck as if something were choking her. Her
throat was dry; she could find neither words nor voice in which to give
to the waiting girl her message of two-fold shame.
"Chérie ... my darling ... I must speak to you about that night ... your
birthday-night----"
Chérie started back. "No!" she cried. "You said when we came here that
we were to forget it--that it was a dream! Why--why should you speak of
it again?"
"Chérie," said Louise in a low voice, "perhaps for you." ... She
faltered, "for you it may have been a dream. But not for me."
The girl sat straight upright, tense and alert. "What do you mean,
Louise?"
"I mean that for me that night has borne its evil fruit. Chérie! I
thought of killing myself. But yesterday ... I spoke to Dr. Reynolds. He
has promised to save me."
"To save you!" gasped Chérie. "Louise! Louise! Are you so ill?"
"My darling, my own dear child, I am worse than ill. But there is help
for me; I shall be saved--saved from dishonour and despair." She lowered
her voice. "Chérie!"--her voice fell so low that it could hardly be
heard by the trembling girl beside her--"can you not understand? The
shame I am called upon to face--the doom that awaits me--is maternity."
_Maternity!_ Slowly, as if an unseen force uplifted her, Chérie had
risen to her feet. Maternity!... The veil of the mystery was rent, the
wonder was revealed! Maternity! That was the key to all her own strange
and marvellous sensations, to the throb and the thrill within her!
Maternity.
She stood motionless, amazed. A shaft of sunlight from the open window
beat upon her, turning her hair to gold and her wide eyes to pools of
wondering light. Such wonder and such light were about her that Louise
gazed in awed silence at the ethereal figure, standing with pale hands
extended and virginal face upturned.
She seemed to be listening.... To what voice? What annunciation did she
harken to with those rapt eyes?
Louise called her by her name. But Chérie did not answer. Her lips were
mute, her eyes were distant and unseeing. She heard no other voice but a
child-voice asking from her the gift of life.
And to that voice her trembling spirit answered.