the risk mrs left her children in my care and i mean to be true to the trust i don t know what you think of me mr i am not wholly heartless and i love the children and because i love them i will try to take their mother s place and she turned round and went out of the room and left him standing it was not a very calm face but still it was a steady one that she presented to aunt when she went up stairs again it is more serious than i thought she said the children have scarlet fever and we must prepare for some hard work pa hi � e n chapter xv th b in the pool was sent down stairs to remain in her s care and be kept out of the way for as yet she had complained of nothing serious and they tried to hope that she would escape the then set about her tasks in quietly bathed her face and hands with brushed her hair back into a great knot and changed her dress for a light cool there are some women who do everything gracefully and without losing their self possession was one of them it is astonishing what a woman can and will do when her heart is in her work in days looked back at the dreary hours of danger and suffering that followed with a shudder wondering how she had lived through them it was no light responsibility and no light labor that fell into her hands then sometimes she grew faint under its burden and needed all her strength of will and purpose to rouse herself to fitness it� for a week she never left the nursery bedroom hardly daring to sleep in her anxiety lay upon his bed with fever and wildly moaning for water sometimes and crying for his mother baby and fretted and slept by turns and as a finishing stroke to all the evils at the end of the week dropped fainting on the parlor floor and was brought up to the sick room to be nursed with the rest here was a unique position for the the day was taken ill carried her up stairs in his arms and stayed with her all night when he first entered was sitting by with baby lying across her shoulder as she leaned her head wearily against the chair back and a fierce throb shook his heart as he noted her white face and the purple shadows round her eyes short as they were those seven days had absolutely changed her when he had left with he came back into the nursery feeling as if some force controlled him he said for he forgot everything in his new pity for her and spoke as he would have spoken to bar � you must leave to me and go and sleep another week of such labor and watching will kill you perhaps she had grown weak that bis kindly tone touched her so at any rate she glanced up at him with a smile i could not go to sleep if i lay down she said trying to speak cheerfully i don t like to leave them for a moment look at s face and she drew down the the poor little fellow s temples looked and hollow a great scarlet spot blazed on each cheek and his eyes were heavily closed he has not spoken since yesterday she did not care to control herself now and the sudden tears choked her voice oh i wish mrs would come home looked down at the sweet white face thrilled to his very soul there was something in it which he was to understand but which he had never understood before something of latent truth something of what she had suffered which now in her trouble was not hidden by any of the perfect acting it was months since she had come to his house and every day had been a slow step to the ending of the story for months he had struggled with his fate and now as the soft eyes raised up to his and fell again he felt that all the struggles and and contempt were as nothing and that he stood to night just where he had stood when their met in the little theatre at nearly four years ago he had tried to hate her and learned to love her because her sweet eyes were so tender and as she stood there with s baby in her arms she seemed to blot out some of the past and her red lips drooped as little s might have done in such a womanhood as this when she bad sung the pretty his heart had to passionate regret and yearning the one moment in which her soft cheek had touched his breast had opened his eyes to the truth and now spite of himself and his pride he must needs speak a little of that truth in his remorse for the times when he could see he had been cruel if he had been just you must let me help you he said you have taken too heavy a burden upon yourself she looked up quickly and then turned her face away did not mean to him but there was a ring in his voice that seemed almost a mockery it recalled so much to her but simple as the movement was it stung him cannot we forget the old wrongs for a while he said bitterly or are we to be enemies forever for a i hardly to raise her face the re had shot so sharply over its white like a man he had misunderstood her and like a woman she must hide her pain so she answered him as bitterly as he had spoken this is no time to remember wrongs she said i don t want 