accidents of her disordered life, and she must make the utmost of it.
She covered him up where in his dream he had kicked himself free from
the blanket. She bent and kissed him on the forehead gently not to
awaken him. He rolled over, settled himself into an easier position, and
the tension of his small face relaxed. Instead of the frown of effort a
beautiful smile broke over his face, as if at the touch of his mother's
lips the character of his dreams had changed to something highly
pleasurable. Adelle's eyes filled with unaccustomed tears, and she
lingered there a few moments. Nothing was too much to do for him, to
bear for him, no sacrifice that she might make for his future! It was
settled. She should never speak to any one of what she knew. "Boy"
should have everything she could give him, all that was left of her
magic lamp. Even Archie could never exasperate her again enough to
endanger the child's future.
She turned down the night-light and tiptoed out of the room. To-morrow
she would move up here, even if she had to put the nurse in some other
place, and henceforth she would never be separated from her child. He
should stand between her and his father. She went to her rooms on the
lower floor, but before undressing she stepped out on the broad terrace,
which was now almost ready for the sod. The great wall was all but
finished--the corner by the orangery to be built up even with the rest.
As she came out from the shelter of the house the blast of wind caught
her thin dress and swept it out before her like a streamer. She had to
hold her hair to prevent the wind from unwinding it. She could see
nothing--the impalpable blackness reached far down into the depths of
the canon, far out into the space above the land and the sea. Usually
even on dark nights the hill behind the house brooded over the place
like a faint shadow, but to-night it was blotted out. The house was dark
except for the light in Archie's library at the other end of the terrace
and the faint candle gleam of the night-light in the nursery.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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