Then, telling me to lie quiet and they would come back presently, he
went downstairs and Martin's father followed him.
Nurse came up while they were away (she had taken possession of me
during the last few days), and I asked her who were in the
parlour-kitchen.
"Only Father Donovan and Mrs. Conrad--and baby," she told me.
Then the doctors came back--the consultant first, trying to look
cheerful, and the old doctor last, with a slow step and his head down,
as if he had been a prisoner coming back to court to receive sentence.
"My lady," said the strange doctor, "you are a brave woman if ever there
was one, so we have decided to tell you the truth about your condition."
And then he told me.
I was not afraid. I will not say that I was not sorry. I could have
wished to live a little longer--especially now when (but for the
Commandment of God) love and happiness seemed to be within my grasp.
But oh, the relief! There was something sacred in it, something
supernatural. It was as if God Himself had come down to me in the
bewildering maze that was haunted by the footsteps of my fate and led me
out of it.
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