She ended by saying:
"There is no gratitude in this world ..."
When the matron came back, she was much shocked at seeing me kiss
the convict.
I said, "Good-bye," and never saw her again.
My husband looked carefully into her case, but found that she was
a professional abortionist of the most hopeless type.
CHAPTER VIII
MARGOT'S FIRST BABY AND ITS LOSS--DANGEROUS ILLNESS--LETTER FROM
QUEEN VICTORIA--SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT'S PLEASANTRIES--ASQUITH
MINISTRY FALLS--VISIT FROM DUCHESS D'AOSTA
Sir John Williams [Footnote: Sir John Williams, of Aberystwyth,
Wales.] was my doctor and would have been a remarkable man in any
country, but in Wales he was unique. He was a man of heart without
hysteria and both loyal and truthful.
On the 18th of May, 1895, my sisters Charlotte and Lucy were
sitting with me in my bedroom. I will quote from my diary the
account of my first confinement and how I got to know him:
"I began to feel ill. My Gamp, an angular-faced, admirable old
woman called Jerusha Taylor--'out of the Book of Kings'--was
bustling about preparing for the doctor. Henry was holding my
hands and I was sobbing in an arm-chair, feeling the panic of pain
and fear which no one can realise who has not had a baby.
"When Williams arrived, I felt as if salvation must be near; my
whole soul and every beat of my heart went out in dumb appeal to
him, and his tenderness on that occasion bred in me a love and
gratitude which never faded, but was intensified by all I saw of
him afterwards.
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