Thornton might return at any time and soon--her child would be born! First terror, then a growing calmness, possessed Meredith. She forgot Thornton in her planning, forgot her own misery and sense of wrong. She did not hate her child as she might have--she learned in the end to consider it as the one opportunity left to her of saving whatever was good in her and Thornton. She clung to that good, she was just, at last, to Thornton as well as herself. Both he and she were victims of ignorance--the little coming child must be saved from that ignorance; the father's and--yes, her own, for Meredith was convinced that she would not live through her ordeal. Thornton must not have the child--he was unfit for that sacred duty of giving it the chance that had been denied the parents. The new life must have its roots in cleaner and purer soil. Doris must save it. Doris! Then Meredith wrote three notes. One was to Sister Angela: You remember how, as a little girl, you let me come to you and tell you things that I could not tell even to God? I am coming now, Sister--will be there soon after this reaches you; and then--I will tell you! I want my child to be born with you and Doris near me. I have written to Doris. And whether I live or die, my husband must not have my child. You must help me. The second letter was longer, for it contained explanations and reasons. These were stated baldly, briefly, but for that very quality they rang luridly dramatic. The third note was left on Thornton's desk and simply informed him that she was going to Doris and would never return. CHAPTER II "_Minds that sway the future like a tide._" Sister Angela read her letter sitting before the fire in the living room at Ridge House. She read it over and over and then, as was common with her, she clasped the cross that hung from her girdle--and opened her soul. She called it prayer. Meredith became personally near her--the written words had materialized her. With the clairvoyance that had been part of her equipment in dealing with people and events of the past, Angela began slowly to understand. So actually was she possessed by reality that her face grew grim and deadly pale. She was a woman of experience in the worldly sense, but she was unyielding in her spiritual interpretation of moral codes. She felt the full weight of the tragedy that had overwhelmed a girl of Meredith Thornton's type. She had no inclination, nor was there time now, to consider Thornton's side of this terrible condition. She must act for Meredith and Meredith's child. Folding the letter, she dropped it into her pocket and sent for Sister Janice, the housekeeper. Angela gave silent thanks for Janice's temperament. Janice was so cheerful as often to depress others; so grateful that she gloried in self-abnegation and had no curiosity outside a given command.