“You—­you mean—­” she stammered, her voice hardly a whisper.  “Oh—­it is impossible!” Then, with a flare of indignation:  “Do you realise what you are implying—­that Mr. van Tuiver—­”

“There is no question of implying,” I said, quietly.  “It is the facts we have to face now, and you will have to help us to face them.”

She cowered and swayed before me, hiding her face in her hands.  I heard her sobbing and murmuring incoherent cries to her god.  I took the poor lady’s hand, and bore with her as long as I could, until, being at the end of my patience with prudery and purity and chivalry, and all the rest of the highfalutin romanticism of the South, I said:  “Mrs Tuis, it is necessary that you should get yourself together.  You have a serious duty before you—­that you owe both to Sylvia and her child.”

“What is it?” she whispered.  The word “duty” had motive power for her.

“At all hazards, Sylvia must be kept in ignorance of the calamity for the present.  If she were to learn of it it would quite possibly throw her into a fever, and cost her life or the child’s.  You must not make any sound that she can hear, and you must not go near her until you have completely mastered your emotions.”

“Very well,” she murmured.  She was really a brave little body, but I, not knowing her, and thinking only of the peril, was cruel in hammering things into her consciousness.  Finally, I left her, seated upon the steps of the deserted boat-house, rocking back and forth and sobbing softly to herself—­one of the most pitiful figures it has ever been my fortune to encounter in my pilgrimage through a world of sentimentality and incompetence.

16.  I went back to the house, and because we feared the sounds of the infant’s crying might carry, we hung blankets before the doors and windows of the room, and sat in the hot enclosure, shuddering, silent, grey with fear.  After an hour or two, Mrs. Tuis rejoined us, stealing in and seating herself at one side of the room, staring from one to another of us with wide eyes of fright.

By the time the first signs of dawn appeared, the infant had cried itself into a state of exhaustion.  The faint light that got into the room revealed the three of us, listening to the pitiful whimpering.  I was faint with weakness, but I had to make an effort and face the worst ordeal of all.  There came a tapping at the door—­the maid, to say that Sylvia was awake and had heard of my arrival and wished to see me.  I might have put off our meeting for a while, on the plea of exhaustion, but I preferred to have it over with, and braced myself and went slowly to her room.

In the doorway I paused for an instant to gaze at her.  She was exquisite, lying there with the flush of sleep still upon her, and the ecstasy of her great achievement in her face.  I fled to her, and we caught each other in our arms.  “Oh, Mary, Mary!  I’m so glad you’ve come!” And then:  “Oh, Mary, isn’t it the loveliest baby!”