h of yours for my
Guilbert--for my son! Every minute of his life has been mine. He is
mine--all mine--and so he shall remain. You who gambled with the name,
the fame, the very soul of your wife, you shall not have one breath of
her child's life."

It was as if the outward action of life was suspended in them for a
moment, and then came the battle of two strong spirits: the struggle
of fretful and indulged egotism, the impulse of a vigorous temperament,
against a deep moral force, a high purity of mind and conscience, and
the invincible love of the mother for the child. Time, bitterness, and
power had hardened Philip's mind, and his long-restrained emotions,
breaking loose now, made him a passionate and wilful figure. His force
lay in the very unruliness of his spirit, hers in the perfect command of
her moods and emotions. Well equipped by the thoughts and sufferings of
five long years, her spirit was trained to meet this onset with fiery
wisdom. They were like two armies watching each other across a narrow
stream, between one conflict and another.

For a minute they stood at gaze. The only sounds in the room were the
whirring of the fire in the chimney and the child's breathing. At last
Philip's intemperate self-will gave way. There was no withstanding that
cold, still face, that unwavering eye. Only brutality could go further.
The nobility of her nature, her inflexible straight-forwardness came
upon him with overwhelming force. Dressed in molleton, with no adornment
save the glow of a perfect health, she seemed at this moment, as on the
Ecrehos, the one being on earth worth living and caring for. What had he
got for all the wrong he had done her? Nothing. Come what might, there
was one thing that he could yet do, and even as the thought possessed
him he spoke.

"Guida," he said with rushing emotion, "it is not too late. Forgive the
past-the wrong of it, the shame of it. You are my wife; nothing can undo
that. The other woman--she is nothing to me. If we part and never meet
again she will suffer no more than she suffers to go on with me. She
has never loved me, nor I her. Ambition did it all, and of ambition God
knows I have had enough! Let me proclaim our marriage, let me come back
to you. Then, happen what will, for the rest of our lives I will try to
atone for the wrong I did you. I want you, I want our child. I want to
win your love again. I can't wipe out what I have done, but I can put
you right before the worl