Chapter 21

I to turn out in such weather?" objected Mr. Cumberland, who, when he was opposed to a thing, was an adept in piling up obstacles. "I tell you it's impossible, Ethel. It's madness, on such a night as this."

"Who cares for the storm?" raved Ethel, whose feelings, if evanescent, were intense. "I _will_ go, Cecil! I don't want you, I'll go by myself. Nothing shall stop me. If it stormed fire and blood I should go all the same. I'll walk--I'll _crawl_ there, before I will stay here and let my boy die without me. He is _my_ baby--my _own_ child, I tell you, Cecil!--if he isn't yours."

Of this fact Cecil Cumberland needed no reminder. It was a thorn that pricked and stung even his dull nature--for the child's father lived. To a jealous temperament it is galling to be reminded of a predecessor in a wife's affections, even when the grave has closed over him; if the man still lives, it is intolerable.

He was not a brute, and he knew that he must yield to his wife's pressure--that he had no choice but to yield; but he stood for a moment irresolute, staring at her with lowering brows, a hearty curse on living father and dying child slowly formulating in his breast.

As he turned to leave the room to give the necessary orders, a carriage drove rapidly to the door and stopped, and there was a vigorous pull at the bell. Thorne had provided against all possible delay. Then the question arose of who should accompany her, and they found that there was not a single available woman in the house. It was impossible to let her go alone, and Cumberland, with the curses rising from his heart to his lips, was forced, in very manhood, to go with her himself.

In Brooklyn Mrs. Creswell met them herself at the door, and appeared surprised--as well she might--to see Mr. Cumberland. She motioned Ethel toward the staircase, and then with a formal inclination of the head, ushered her more unwelcome guest into a small parlor where there was a fire and a lamp burning. Here she left him alone. Her house was in the suburbs, and there was nowhere else for him to go at that hour of the night and in that terrible storm.

The room was warm and cheerful, a child's toys lay scattered on floor and sofa, a little hat and coat were on the table, beside a cigar case and a crumpled newspaper. There was nothing for the man to do save to stare around and walk the floor impatiently, longing for death to hasten with his work, so that the false position might be ended.

Guided by unerring instinct, Ethel went straight to the chamber where her child lay dying--perhaps already dead. Outside the door she paused with her hand pressed hard on her throbbing heart.

It was a piteous sight that met her view as the door swung open, rendered doubly piteous by the circumstances. A luxurious room, a brooding silence, a tiny white bed on which a little child lay, slowly and painfully breathing his life away.