you mean to tell me you--" She did not
finish, but began again, not noticing that the door behind her had let
in her husband: "Do you mean to say that you have let me go on all these
years nursing that--that, that--creature's child and--"

"Yes, my dear," said the Doctor, touching her arm, and taking her hand,
"I have." She turned on her husband her startled, hurt face and
exclaimed, "And you, Jim--you too--you too?"

"What else could I do in honor, my dear? And it has been for the best."

"No," she cried angrily; "no, see what you have brought to us, Jim--that
hussy's--her, why, her very--"

The years had told upon Doctor Nesbit. He could not rise to the struggle
as he could have risen a decade before. His hands were shaking and his
voice broke as he replied: "Yes, my dear--I know--I know. But while she
bore him, we have formed him." To her darkening face he repeated: "You
have formed him--and made him--you and the Adamses--with your love. And
love," his soft, high voice was tender as he concluded, "love purges
everything--doesn't it, Bedelia?"

"Yes, father,--love is enough. Oh, Grant, Grant--it doesn't matter--not
to me. Poor--poor Margaret, what she has lost--what she has lost!" said
the younger woman, as she stood close to Grant and looked deeply into
his anguished face. Mrs. Nesbit stood wet-eyed, and spent of her wrath,
looking at the three before her.

"O God--my God, forgive me--but I can't--Oh, Laura--Jim--I can't, I
can't, not that woman's--not her--her--" She stopped and cried
miserably, "You all know what he is, and whose he is." Again she stopped
and looked beseechingly around. "Oh, you won't let Lila--she wouldn't do
that--not take that woman's--that woman who disgraced Lila's
mother--Lila must not take her child--Oh, Jim, you won't let that--"

As she spoke Mrs. Nesbit sank to a sofa near the door, and turned her
face to the pillow. The three who watched her turned blank, inquiring
faces to one another.

"Perhaps," the Doctor began hesitatingly and impotently, "Lila should--"

"What does she know--what can a child of twenty know," answered the
grandmother from her pillow, "of the taint of that blood, of the devil
she will transmit? Why, Jim--Oh, Jim--Lila's not old enough to decide.
She mustn't--she mustn't--we mustn't let her." Mrs. Nesbit raised her
body and asked as one who grasps a shadow, "Won't you ask her to
wait--to wait until she can understand?"

A question passed from face to face