The Shield of Silence | Page 6

you go. You'll--"
"Leave me alone!" Meredith sprang to her feet. "How dare you?"
And again Thornton laughed.

"Dare? You--you little idiot! You'll come with me to-morrow--by
God!"
* * * * *
But Meredith did not go with Thornton on the morrow, and if the other
took her place she did not seek to know.
The weeks and months dragged on and she was thankful for time to
think and plot. It took so much time for one who had never acted before.
And then--she knew the worst!
Thornton might return at any time and soon--her child would be born!
First terror, then a growing calmness, possessed Meredith. She forgot
Thornton in her planning, forgot her own misery and sense of wrong.
She did not hate her child as she might have--she learned in the end to
consider it as the one opportunity left to her of saving whatever was
good in her and Thornton. She clung to that good, she was just, at last,
to Thornton as well as herself. Both he and she were victims of
ignorance--the little coming child must be saved from that ignorance;
the father's and--yes, her own, for Meredith was convinced that she
would not live through her ordeal.
Thornton must not have the child--he was unfit for that sacred duty of
giving it the chance that had been denied the parents. The new life must
have its roots in cleaner and purer soil. Doris must save it. Doris!
Then Meredith wrote three notes. One was to Sister Angela:
You remember how, as a little girl, you let me come to you and tell you
things that I could not tell even to God? I am coming now, Sister--will
be there soon after this reaches you; and then--I will tell you!
I want my child to be born with you and Doris near me. I have written
to Doris.
And whether I live or die, my husband must not have my child. You
must help me.

The second letter was longer, for it contained explanations and reasons.
These were stated baldly, briefly, but for that very quality they rang
luridly dramatic.
The third note was left on Thornton's desk and simply informed him
that she was going to Doris and would never return.
CHAPTER II
"Minds that sway the future like a tide."
Sister Angela read her letter sitting before the fire in the living room at
Ridge House.
She read it over and over and then, as was common with her, she
clasped the cross that hung from her girdle--and opened her soul. She
called it prayer. Meredith became personally near her--the written
words had materialized her. With the clairvoyance that had been part of
her equipment in dealing with people and events of the past, Angela
began slowly to understand.
So actually was she possessed by reality that her face grew grim and
deadly pale. She was a woman of experience in the worldly sense, but
she was unyielding in her spiritual interpretation of moral codes. She
felt the full weight of the tragedy that had overwhelmed a girl of
Meredith Thornton's type. She had no inclination, nor was there time
now, to consider Thornton's side of this terrible condition. She must act
for Meredith and Meredith's child.
Folding the letter, she dropped it into her pocket and sent for Sister
Janice, the housekeeper.
Angela gave silent thanks for Janice's temperament.
Janice was so cheerful as often to depress others; so grateful that she
gloried in self-abnegation and had no curiosity outside a given
command.

"The house must be got ready for visitors," Angela informed Janice.
"Two former pupils--and one of them is ill." When she said this Angela
paused. How did she know Meredith was ill?
"Shall I open the west wing?" asked Janice, alert as to her duties.
"Open everything. Have the place at its best; but I would like the
younger sister, Mrs. Thornton, to have the chamber on the south, the
guest chamber."
When Janice had departed, Sister Constance appeared.
In her early days Constance had been a famous nurse and for years
afterward the head of a school for nurses. Her eyes brightened now as
she listened to her superior. She had long chafed under the strain of
inaction. She listened and nodded.
"Everything shall be done as you wish, Sister," she said at last, and
Angela knew that it would be.
Lastly, old Jed was called from his outside duties and stood, battered
hat in hand, to receive his commands. Jed was old and black and his
wool was white as snow; his strong, perfect teeth glittered with gold
fillings. How the old man had fallen to this vanity no one knew, but
sooner or later all the money he made was converted into fillings.
"They do say,"