Were all men like these two whom she had loved, she questioned herself, mournfully. Not one of them was worthy of a true woman's love--no, not one.
It had come to this--a deserted wife--through no fault of hers was this tribulation brought on her. She felt that the world had used her hardly and cruelly. The passion and pride that underlie firm yet sweet natures like hers, surged up to the surface and buoyed her up above the raging billows of grief and sorrow. She felt too indignant to weep. She had almost wept her heart out long ago. She meant to sit still with folded hands and tranquil heart, and let the cold, harsh world go by heedless of its pangs, as it was of hers.
Her husband was using her cruelly in bringing this unmerited disgrace upon her and her child. She half resolved to flee far away with her boy where he could never find her in the hour when shame and repentance should drive him back to her side. It was but for a moment. Then she remembered the brief sentence in his note that commanded her to remain in his home, and then her resolution wavered; for when Grace Grey had taken that solemn oath before God to "love, honor, and _obey_," she had meant to keep her word.
Poor child! for hers was a strangely complex nature--a blending of the child and woman that we often meet in fine, proud feminine natures, and never wholly understand.
A hundred conflicting emotions surged madly through her as she sat there, motionless and pale, until moment after moment went by, and the overtaxed brain, the overwrought heart gave way, and blessed unconsciousness stole upon her. With her hands folded loosely in her lap over that cruel note, a sharp despair shadowed forth in that lovely face, the stately head fell forward and rested heavily on the pillow beside the child, whose rosy, unconscious slumber was unbroken, as though the hovering wings of angels brooded above him and his forsaken mother.
Norah found her thus when the cooing voice of the awakened babe reached her ears in the nursery. His pretty black eyes were sparkling with glee, his rosy lips prattled baby nothings, his dimpled, white fingers were twisted in the bright curls of his mother's hair as they swept luxuriantly over the pillow.