This woman through whom she lives again
did not die of her own choice; but I do not find it incredible that many
women will hereafter be found willing and eager to die as she did, to
bring back to earth the good, the wise, the heroic, and beloved. The
world will never need to lose its heroes then, for there will never lack
ardent and devoted women to contend for such crowns of motherhood."
He stopped abruptly, for he had observed that Ida's face betrayed acute
distress.
"Forgive me," he said. "You do not like us to talk of this."
"I think I do not," she replied, in a low voice, without looking up. "It
affects me very strangely to think about it much. I would like to forget
it if I could and feel that I am like other people."
She had, in fact, shown a marked and increasing indisposition almost from
the first to discuss the events of that wonderful night at Mrs.
Legrand's. After having had the circumstances once fully explained to
her, she had never since referred to them of her own accord.
She apparently had the shrinking which any person, and especially a
woman, would naturally have from the idea of being regarded as something
abnormal and uncanny, and mingled with this was, perhaps, a certain
sacred shamefacedness, at the thought that this most intimate and vital
mystery of her second birth had been witnessed and was the subject of
curious speculations.
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