It _was_ her great adventure--the greatest ever known in all her life; and she had dared it now only because of two of the strongest emotions known to a woman's soul. These are two. They both come under a common name. That name is love.
It was love had brought Miss Julia hither. Love in the first place for Dieudonné Lane--or was it, really, in the first place, love for him? For we, who know as much as Aurora Lane knew of Miss Julia's secret--who once saw her gazing adoringly at a certain framed portrait when she fancied herself alone--would have known that there was more than one mansion in the heart of the little lame librarian.
Helpless, resigned--but yet a woman--Miss Julia loved in the first place as every woman with any touch of normality does love in spite of all. She had known all these years that her love was hopeless, that it was wrong, that it was a sin--she classed it as her sin. And her sin being her own, she hugged it to her bosom and wept over it these twenty years--became repentant over it--became defiant for it; prayed over it and clung to it--in short, comported herself as any woman would. And now Miss Julia, being what she was, stood flushed, her tiding pulses rising to her eyes, staining her fair skin deep to her very neck, as she faced her great adventure--as she stood looking into the face she had framed on her wall, framed on her desk, framed in her heart as well, in silver and gold and all the brilliants and the gems of a woman's soul.
But she was here by reason of a twofold love. Always in her heart, since she could remember, there had been the great secondary longing for something small to love, to hold in her arms--the desire for a child of her own--the one thing which, as Miss Julia knew, might never be for her.
Indeed, this great craving had always remained unformulated, unidentified, until that time, years and years ago, when she first saw the baby of Aurora Lane lifting up its hands to her. So she had become one-half a mother, at the least.
He was half her boy, at least, he who now lay in prison. A woman is a coward as to revealing her love for her chosen mate--she will conceal that, deny that, to the death. But for the child her love is different--then she becomes bold--she will defy all the world--will force herself even into situations otherwise unthinkable. Except for her love for Don Lane, the fatherless, Miss Julia would never have undertaken to find a father for him.