Edith could not speak.  She wrote her wants with a stub of pencil, or made signs.  One day she motioned toward a mirror and Ellen took it to her.

“You needn’t be frightened,” she said.  “When those scabs come off the doctor says you’ll hardly be marked at all.”

But Edith only glanced at herself, and threw the mirror aside.

Another time she wrote:  “Willy?”

“He’s all right.  They’ve got a girl at the store to take your place, but I guess you can go back if you want to.”  Then, seeing the hunger in the girl’s eyes:  “He’s out a good bit these nights.  He’s making speeches for that Mr. Hendricks.  As if he could be elected against Mr. Cardew!”

The confinement told on Ellen.  She would sit for hours, wondering what had become of Lily.  Had she gone back home?  Was she seeing that other man?  Perhaps her valiant loyalty to Lily faded somewhat during those days, because she began to guess Willy Cameron’s secret.  If a girl had no eyes in her head, and couldn’t see that Willy Cameron was the finest gentleman who ever stepped in shoe leather, that girl had something wrong about her.

Then, sometimes, she wondered how Edith’s condition was going to be kept from her mother.  She had measured Mrs. Boyd’s pride by that time, her almost terrible respectability.  She rather hoped that the sick woman would die some night, easily and painlessly in her sleep, because death was easier than some things.  She liked Mrs. Boyd; she felt a slightly contemptuous but real affection for her.

Then one night Edith heard Willy’s voice below, and indicated that she wanted to see him.  He came in, stooping under the sheet which Mrs. Boyd had heard belonged in the doorway of diphtheria, and stood looking down at her.  His heart ached.  He sat down on the bed beside her and stroked her hand.

“Poor little girl,” he said.  “We’ve got to make things very happy for her, to make up for all this!”

But Edith freed her hand, and reaching out for paper and pencil stub, wrote something and gave it to Ellen.

Ellen read it.

“Tell him.”

“I don’t want to, Edith.  You wait and do it yourself.”

But Edith made an insistent gesture, and Ellen, flushed and wretched, had to tell.  He made no sign, but sat stroking Edith’s hand, only he stared rather fixedly at the wall, conscious that the girl’s eyes were watching him for a single gesture of surprise or anger.  He felt no anger, only a great perplexity and sadness, an older-brother grief.

“I’m sorry, little sister,” he said, and did the kindest thing he could think of, bent over and kissed her on the forehead.  “Of course I know how you feel, but it is a big thing to bear a child, isn’t it?  It is the only miracle we have these days.”

“A child with no father,” said Ellen, stonily.

“Even then,” he persisted, “it’s a big thing.  We would have this one come under happier circumstances if we could, but we will welcome and take care of it, anyhow.  A child’s a child, and mighty valuable.  And,” he added—­“I appreciate your wanting me to know, Edith.”