Nora, her back against the window frame, her fingers sunk in her big loose bosom, stared petrified.Stevens, like an athlete swinging an indian club, whirled the body round and round his head, at the full length of his powerful arms.More and more rapidly he swung it, until his breath came and went in gasps and the sweat was trickling in streams down his face and neck.Round and round between ceiling and floor whirled the naked body of the baby--round and round for minutes that seemed hours to the horrified nurse--round and round with all the strength and speed the young man could put forth--round and round until the room was a blur before his throbbing eyes, until his expression became fully as demoniac as Nora had been fancying it.Just as she was recovering from her paralysis of horror and was about to fly shrieking from the room she was halted by a sound that made her draw in air until her bosom swelled as if it would burst its gingham prison.She craned eagerly toward Stevens.He was whirling the body more furiously than ever.
"Was that you?" asked Nora hoarsely."Or was it----" She paused, listened.
The sound came again--the sound of a drowning person fighting for breath.
"It's--it's----" muttered Nora."What is it, Doctor?""Life!" panted Stevens, triumph in his glistening, streaming face."Life!"He continued to whirl the little form, but not so rapidly or so vigorously.And now the sound was louder, or, rather, less faint, less uncertain--was a cry--was the cry of a living thing.
"She's alive--alive!" shrieked the woman, and in time with his movements she swayed to and fro from side to side, laughing, weeping, wringing her hands, patting her bosom, her cheeks.She stretched out her arms."My prayers are answered!" she cried.
"Don't kill her, you brute! Give her to me.You shan't treat a baby that way."The unheeding doctor kept on whirling until the cry was continuous, a low but lusty wail of angry protest.Then he stopped, caught the baby up in both arms, burst out laughing.
"You little minx!" he said--or, rather, gasped--a tenderness quite maternal in his eyes."But I got you! Nora, the table."Nora righted the table, spread and smoothed the cloths, extended her scrawny eager arms for the baby.Stevens with a jerk of the head motioned her aside, laid the baby on the table.He felt for the pulse at its wrist, bent to listen at the heart.Quite useless.That strong, rising howl of helpless fury was proof enough.Her majesty the baby was mad through and through--therefore alive through and through.
"Grand heart action!" said the young man.He stood aloof, hands on his hips, head at a proud angle."You never saw a healthier specimen.It'll be many a year, bar accidents, before she's that near death again."But it was Nora's turn not to hear.She was soothing and swaddling the outraged baby."There--there!" she crooned.
"Nora'll take care of you.The bad man shan't come near my little precious--no, the wicked man shan't touch her again."The bedroom door opened.At the slight noise superstitious Nora paled, shriveled within her green and white checked gingham.She slowly turned her head as if on this day of miracles she expected yet another--the resurrection of the resurrected baby's mother, "poor Miss Lorella." But Lorella Lenox was forever tranquil in the sleep that engulfed her and the sorrows in which she had been entangled by an impetuous, trusting heart.
The apparition in the doorway was commonplace--the mistress of the house, Lorella's elder and married sister Fanny--neither fair nor dark, neither tall nor short, neither thin nor fat, neither pretty nor homely, neither stupid nor bright, neither neat nor dowdy--one of that multitude of excellent, unobtrusive human beings who make the restful stretches in a world of agitations--and who respond to the impetus of circumstance as unresistingly as cloud to wind.
As the wail of the child smote upon Fanny's ears she lifted her head, startled, and cried out sharply, "What's that?""We've saved the baby, Mrs.Warham," replied the young doctor, beaming on her through his glasses.
"Oh!" said Mrs.Warham.And she abruptly seated herself on the big chintz-covered sofa beside the door.
"And it's a lovely child," pleaded Nora.Her woman's instinct guided her straight to the secret of the conflict raging behind Mrs.Warham's unhappy face.
"The finest girl in the world," cried Stevens, well-meaning but tactless.
"Girl!" exclaimed Fanny, starting up from the sofa."Is it a _girl_?"Nora nodded.The young man looked downcast; he was realizing the practical side of his victory for science--the consequences to the girl child, to all the relatives.
"A girl!" moaned Fanny, sinking to the sofa again."God have mercy on us!"Louder and angrier rose the wail.Fanny, after a brief struggle with herself, hurried to the table, looked down at the tiny helplessness.Her face softened.She had been a mother four times.Only one had lived--her fair little two-year-old Ruth--and she would never have any more children.The tears glistened in her eyes."What ails you, Nora Mulvey?" she demanded."Why aren't you 'tending to this poor little creature?"Nora sprang into action, but she wrapped the baby herself.The doctor in deep embarrassment withdrew to the farther window.She fussed over the baby lingeringly, but finally resigned it to the nurse."Take it into the bathroom," she said, "where everything's ready to feed it--though I never dreamed----" As Nora was about to depart, she detained her."Let me look at it again."The nurse understood that Fanny Warham was searching for evidence of the mysterious but suspected paternity whose secret Lorella, with true Lenox obstinacy, had guarded to the end.The two women scanned the features.A man would at a glance have abandoned hope of discovering anything from a chart so vague and confused as that wrinkled, twisted, swollen face of the newborn.
