The Awakening of Helena Richie

Thinking of that gratitude, the tears dried upon Helena's cheeks, hot

with the firelight and with her thoughts. "Suppose she had lived just

a little longer?--just three years longer? Where would her gratitude

have been then?" Helena's face overflowed with sudden gay malice, but

below the malice was weariness. "You are happy now--aren't you?" Sam

Wright had said.... Why, yes, certainly. Frederick had "repented," as

Dr. King expressed it; she had seen to his "repentance"! That in

itself was something to have lived for--a searing flame of happiness.

Enough one might think to satisfy her--if she could only have

forgotten the baby. At first she had believed that she could forget

him. Lloyd had told her she would. How young she had been at

twenty-one to think that any one could forget! She smiled dryly at her

childish hope and at Lloyd's ignorance; but his tenderness had been so

passionately convincing,--and how good he had been about the baby! He

had let her talk of him all she wanted to. Of course, after a while he

got a little tired of the subject, and naturally. It was Frederick's

baby! And Lloyd hated Frederick as much as she did. How they used to

talk about him in those first days of his "repentance!"... "Have you

heard anything?" "Yes; running down-hill every day." "Is there any

news?" "Yes, he'll drink himself into his grave in six months." Ah,

that was happiness indeed!--"his grave, in six months!"... She

flung herself back in her chair, her hands dropping listlessly into

her lap. "Oh--my little, dead baby!"...

It was nearly midnight; the fire had burned quite out; the room had

fallen into shadows. Oh, yes, as she told Sam Wright, she was happy.

Her face fell into lines of dull indifference.

She got up, wearily, rubbing her eyes with her knuckles, as a child

does; then suddenly remembered that she had reached no conclusion

about this little boy Dr. Lavendar was interested in. Suppose she

should get fond of him and want to keep him--how would Lloyd feel

about it? Would he think the child might take her thoughts from him?

But at that she smiled; he could not be so foolish! "I'll write and

ask him, anyhow. Of course, if he objects, I wouldn't dream of it. I

wonder what he will think?"