She had to learn again the names of things, and to be taught their use. It was touching to see the untiring devotion of her father, and the pleasure he took in every new evidence of mental growth. He went over the alphabet with her, letter by letter, many times each day, encouraging her and holding her thought down to the unintelligible signs with a patient tenderness sad yet beautiful to see; and when she began to combine letters into words, and at last to put words together, his delight was unbounded.
Very slowly went on the new process of mental growth, and it was months before thought began to reach out beyond the little world that lay just around her.
Meanwhile, Edith’s husband had been brought to trial for forgery, convicted and sentenced to the State’s prison for a term of years. His partner came forward as the chief witness, swearing that he had believed the notes genuine, the firm having several times had the use of Mr. Dinneford’s paper, drawn to the order of Granger.
Ere the day of trial came the poor young man was nearly broken-hearted. Public disgrace like this, added to the terrible private wrongs he was suffering, was more than he had the moral strength to bear. Utterly repudiated by his wife’s family, and not even permitted to see Edith, he only knew that she was very ill. Of the birth of his baby he had but a vague intimation. A rumor was abroad that it had died, but he could learn nothing certain. In his distress and uncertainty he called on Dr. Radcliffe, who replied to his questions with a cold evasion. “It was put out to nurse,” said the doctor, “and that is all I know about it.” Beyond this he would say nothing.
Granger was not taken to the State’s prison after his sentence, but to an insane asylum. Reason gave way under the terrible ordeal through which he had been made to pass.
“Mother,” said Edith, one day, in a tone that caused Mrs. Dinneford’s heart to leap. She was reading a child’s simple story-book, and looked up as she spoke. Her eyes were wide open and full of questions.
“What, my dear?” asked Mrs. Dinneford, repressing her feelings and trying to keep her voice calm.
“There’s something I can’t understand, mother.” She looked down at herself, then about the room. Her manner was becoming nervous.
“What can’t you understand?”
Edith shut her hands over her eyes and remained very still. When she removed them, and her mother looked into her face the childlike sweetness and content were all gone, and a conscious woman was before her. The transformation was as sudden as it was marvelous.
Both remained silent for the space of nearly a minute. Mrs. Dinneford knew not what to say, and waited for some sign from her daughter.
“Where is my baby, mother?” Edith said this in a low, tremulous whisper, leaning forward as she spoke, repressed and eager.
“Have you forgotten?” asked Mrs. Dinneford, with regained composure.
“Forgotten what?”
“You were very ill after your baby was born; no one thought you could live; you were ill for a long time. And the baby—”
“What of the baby, mother?” asked Edith, beginning to tremble violently. Her mother, perceiving her agitation, held back the word that was on her lips.
“What of the baby, mother?” Edith repeated the question.
“It died,” said Mrs. Dinneford, turning partly away. She could not look at her child and utter this cruel falsehood.
“Dead! Oh, mother, don’t say that! The baby can’t be dead!”
A swift flash of suspicion came into her eyes.
“I have said it, my child,” was the almost stern response of Mrs. Dinneford. “The baby is dead.”
A weight seemed to fall on Edith. She bent forward, crouching down until her elbows rested on her knees and her hands supported her head. Thus she sat, rocking her body with a slight motion. Mrs. Dinneford watched her without speaking.
“And what of George?” asked Edith, checking her nervous movement at last.
Her mother did not reply. Edith waited a moment, and then lifted herself erect.
“What of George?” she demanded.
“My poor child!” exclaimed Mrs. Dinneford, with a gush of genuine pity, putting her arms about Edith and drawing her head against her bosom. “It is more than you have strength to bear.”
“You must tell me,” the daughter said, disengaging herself. “I have asked for my husband.”
“Hush! You must not utter that word again;” and Mrs. Dinneford put her fingers on Edith’s lips. “The wretched man you once called by that name is a disgraced criminal. It is better that you know the worst.”
When Mr. Dinneford came home, instead of the quiet, happy child he had left in the morning, he found a sad, almost broken-hearted woman, refusing to be comforted. The wonder was that under the shock of this terrible awakening, reason had not been again and hopelessly dethroned.
After a period of intense suffering, pain seemed to deaden sensibility. She grew calm and passive. And now Mrs. Dinneford set herself to the completion of the work she had begun. She had compassed the ruin of Granger in order to make a divorce possible; she had cast the baby adrift that no sign of the social disgrace might remain as an impediment to her first ambition. She would yet see her daughter in the position to which she had from the beginning resolved to lift her, cost what it might. But the task was not to be an easy one.
After a period of intense suffering, as we have said, Edith grew calm and passive. But she was never at ease with her mother, and seemed to be afraid of her. To her father she was tender and confiding. Mrs. Dinneford soon saw that if Edith’s consent to a divorce from her husband was to be obtained, it must come through her father’s influence; for if she but hinted at the subject, it was met with a flash of almost indignant rejection. So her first work was to bring her husband over to her side. This was not difficult, for Mr. Dinneford felt the disgrace of having for a son-in-law a condemned criminal, who was only saved from the State’s prison by insanity. An insane criminal was not worthy to hold the relation of husband to his pure and lovely child.
After a feeble opposition to her father’s arguments and persuasions, Edith yielded her consent. An application for a divorce was made, and speedily granted.
CHAPTER IV
OUT of this furnace Edith came with a new and purer spirit. She had been thrust in a shrinking and frightened girl; she came out a woman in mental stature, in feeling and self-consciousness.
The river of her life, which had cut for itself a deeper channel, lay now so far down that it was out of the sight of common observation. Even her mother failed to apprehend its drift and strength. Her father knew her better. To her mother she was reserved and distant; to her father, warm and confiding. With the former she would sit for hours without speaking unless addressed; with the latter she was pleased and social, and grew to be interested in what interested him. As mentioned, Mr. Dinneford was a man of wealth and leisure, and active in many public charities. He had come to be much concerned for the neglected and cast-off children of poor and vicious parents, thousands upon thousands of whom were going to hopeless ruin, unthought of and uncared for by Church or State, and their condition often formed the subject of his conversation as well at home as elsewhere.
Mrs. Dinneford had no sympathy with her husband in this direction. A dirty, vicious child was an offence to her, not an object of pity, and she felt more like, spurning it with her foot than touching it with her hand. But it was not so with Edith; she listened to her father, and became deeply interested in the poor, suffering, neglected little ones whose sad condition he could so vividly portray, for the public duties of charity to which he was giving a large part of his time made him familiar with much that was sad and terrible in human suffering and degradation.
One day Edith said to her father,
“I saw a sight this morning that made me sick. It has haunted me ever since. Oh, it was dreadful!”
“What