The Shield of Silence | Page 6

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," he once explained to Sister Angela, "that 'tain't all gold as glitters, but dis year yaller in my mouth, ma'am, is right sure gold an' it's like layin' up treasure in heaven, for no moth nor rust ain't ever going to distroy anythin' in my mouth. No, ma'am! No corruption, nuther."
Jed, listening to Sister Angela, now, was beaming and shining.
"I want you to go to Stone Hedgeton to-morrow, Uncle Jed. You better start early. You must meet every train until you see a young lady--she will be looking about for someone--and bring her here. In between trains make yourself and the horses comfortable at the tavern. I'm glad you do not drink, Jed."
"Yes-m," pondered Jed, "but I 'spect there might be mo' dan one young lady. I reckon it would be disastering if I fotched the wrong one. Isn't thar something 'bout her discounterments as might be leading, as