"It’s a risk," said the nurse. "You never know how they’ll turn out; but he’s a pretty little fellow--big gray eyes and all. He’s been badly fed, but I guess we can build him up." Polly lapsed into a strange, an inexpressible mood. Vincent’s baby! Wasn’t it really sent to her to take the place of the one she had so cruelly lost? She certainly didn’t intend to pass the child off as her own, but she would adopt it and bring it up. She would love it. The starved and thwarted love which no one else wanted welled up in her heart. "He’ll be a lot of trouble to you," said the nurse, looking about the orderly, pretty little place. "You certainly are good to take such a burden on yourself." "I lost a little child of my own," said Polly. And a dreadful pity for herself, and for Angelica, came over her. She might well be sorry for Angelica, going out of the house without that little burden in her arms. This was the supreme hour of Angelica’s punishment--the inhuman struggle between her heart and her brain. She did not look upon it as a punishment, however; she looked upon this horrible renunciation of her child as a part of the price she was obliged to pay for a magnificent future. She was bent, resolute, with all the savage resolution of her lawless soul, to marry Eddie and to obtain all that she so desired. If she must sacrifice her child, then she would do so, though it left a wound never to be healed. She didn’t seek for happiness; if it had been that she wanted, she would have kept her little baby. She was ready and willing to give up happiness for success. She wished to vindicate herself, to give proof to the world of the power which she knew to be within herself. Oh, to be going home alone, with empty arms! It was too cruel! She longed for the feel of that little body, for the sound of its feeble voice, for its eyes looking up at her in pain and innocence. She walked through the streets with streaming eyes, running against people, indifferent to abuse or remonstrance. "I _can’t_ go home without him!" she gasped. "Oh, my little feller! I can’t go home and see his little clothes--and his empty basket!" She stopped short. "No!" she said. "I can’t do this. I thought I could, but I can’t. I got to have him back. I’d rather he died home with me. Oh, I wish we _were_ dead, the two of us, dead and buried--him and me in one grave!" She turned and retraced her long road to Polly’s house, as far as the door; but she did not go in. "No! Him in there with a trained nurse--no! I’ll give him his chance, my poor little feller; and I’ll give myself a chance, too," she added. She started down-town again; but the nearer she got to home, the more unbearable was the idea of entering there, alone. "If only I was over this first night!" she moaned. "If I could only just forget him till to-morrow!" II Mrs. Kennedy kept on working. She didn’t dare to stop, to give herself a moment to think.