But she would not--not
this time! He had hurt a helpless thing once too often. Her fit of
crying ceased, and she lay listening to the tick of the clock, and
marshalling in her mind a hundred little evidences of his malevolence
toward her baby--his own baby. How was it possible? Was he really going
mad? And a fit of such chilly shuddering seized her that she crept under
the eider down to regain warmth. In her rage, she retained enough
sense of proportion to understand that he had done this, just as he had
insulted Monsieur Harmost and her father--and others--in an ungovernable
access of nerve-irritation; just as, perhaps, one day he would kill
someone. But to understand this did not lessen her feeling. Her baby!
Such a tiny thing! She hated him at last; and she lay thinking out the
coldest, the cruellest, the most cutting things to say. She had been too
long-suffering.
But he did not come in that evening; and, too upset to eat or do
anything, she went up to bed at ten o'clock. When she had undressed,
she stole across to the nursery; she had a longing to have the baby
with her--a feeling that to leave her was not safe. She carried her off,
still sleeping, and, locking her doors, got into bed. Having warmed a
nest with her body for the little creature, she laid it there; and then
for a long time lay awake, expecting every minute to hear him return.
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