Within two weeks the child was sitting up playing with its toes. Within a month it was toddling about the kitchen, though the little sister did not walk until some weeks later. The story got about Kimberley, much as Mrs. Ozanne tried to keep it secret. For one thing, the child's extraordinary recovery could not be hidden The doctor's amazement was not less than that of the friends who had watched the progress of the child's sickness and awaited its fatal termination. These, having come to condole, stayed to gape at the news that Rosanne was better and down in the kitchen with the cook. Later, Mrs. Ozanne's nurse appeared regularly in the Public Gardens with only one baby, where once she had perambulated two. Little Rosanne was never seen, and, indeed, never left the back premises of the hotel except on Sunday afternoons, when Rachel Bangat arrayed her in gaudy colours and took her away to the Malay Location. The child's health, instead of suffering, seemed to thrive under this treatment, and she was twice the size of her twin sister. Mrs. Ozanne had means of knowing, too, that, though Rosanne gambolled round in the dust like a little animal all day, she was well washed at night and put to sleep in a clean bed. That was some comfort to the poor mother in her wretchedness. She knew that Kimberley tongues were wagging busily and that, thanks to the servants, the story had leaked out and was public property. There were not wanting mothers to condemn her for what they variously termed her foolishness, ignorant supersitition, and heartlessness. But there were others who sympathized, saying that she had done well in a bad situation to trust to the healing gift some Malays are known to possess together with many other strange powers for good and evil. The doctor himself, after seeing little Rosanne with a pink flush in her cheeks, had said to her mother:
"It's a mystery to me--in fact, something very like a miracle. But, as it turns out, you did quite right to let the woman have the child. I should certainly advise you to leave it with her for a time."
Even if he had not so advised and had there been no sympathizers, in the face of all opposition Mrs. Ozanne would have stuck to her bargain. She knew not what dread fear for her child's safety lay shuddering in the depths of her heart, but this she knew: that nothing could make her defy that fear by breaking bond with Rachel Bangat.