up.
[S]till he slept a little, and that was all he could hope for in these
days.

CHAPTER XXVII

It was while he was in this state, some two months later, that the great
event, so far as Angela was concerned, came about, and in it, of
necessity, he was compelled to take part. Angela was in her room, cosily
and hygienically furnished, overlooking the cathedral grounds at
Morningside Heights, and speculating hourly what her fate was to be. She
had never wholly recovered from the severe attack of rheumatism which
she had endured the preceding summer and, because of her worries since,
in her present condition was pale and weak though she was not ill. The
head visiting obstetrical surgeon, Dr. Lambert, a lean, gray man of
sixty-five years of age, with grizzled cheeks, whose curly gray hair,
wide, humped nose and keen gray eyes told of the energy and insight and
ability that had placed him where he was, took a slight passing fancy to
her, for she seemed to him one of those plain, patient little women
whose lives are laid in sacrificial lines. He liked her brisk,
practical, cheery disposition in the face of her condition, which was
serious, and which was so noticeable to strangers. Angela had naturally
a bright, cheery face, when she was not depressed or quarrelsome. It was
the outward sign of her ability to say witty and clever things, and she
had never lost the desire to have things done efficiently and
intelligently about her wherever she was. The nurse, Miss De Sale, a
solid, phlegmatic person of thirty-five, admired her spunk and courage
and took a great fancy to her also because she was lightsome, buoyant
and hopeful in the face of what was really a very serious situation. The
general impression of the head operating surgeon, the house surgeon and
the nurse was that her heart was weak and that her kidneys might be
affected by her condition. Angela had somehow concluded after talks with
Myrtle that Christian Science, as demonstrated by its practitioners,
might help her through this crisis, though she had no real faith in it.
Eugene would come round, she thought, also, for Myrtle was having
him treated absently, and he was trying to read the book, she
said. There would be a reconciliation between them when the baby
came--because--because---- Well, because children were so winning!
Eugene was really not hard-hearted--he was just infatuated. He had been
ensnared by a siren. He would get over it.

Miss De Sale let