reasure--with exultation
and defiance. One instant of this. Lucy, whose pure tenderness had now
surmounted the first wild passion of their meeting, bent back her head
from her surrendered body, and said almost voicelessly, her underlids
wistfully quivering: "Come and see him--baby;" and then in great hope of
the happiness she was going to give her husband, and share with him, and
in tremour and doubt of what his feelings would be, she blushed, and
her brows worked: she tried to throw off the strangeness of a year of
separation, misunderstanding, and uncertainty.

"Darling! come and see him. He is here." She spoke more clearly, though
no louder.

Richard had released her, and she took his hand, and he suffered
himself to be led to the other side of the bed. His heart began rapidly
throbbing at the sight of a little rosy-curtained cot covered with lace
like milky summer cloud.

It seemed to him he would lose his manhood if he looked on that child's
face.

"Stop!" he cried suddenly.

Lucy turned first to him, and then to her infant, fearing it should have
been disturbed.

"Lucy, come back."

"What is it, darling?" said she, in alarm at his voice and the grip he
had unwittingly given her hand.

O God! what an Ordeal was this! that to-morrow he must face death,
perhaps die and be torn from his darling--his wife and his child; and
that ere he went forth, ere he could dare to see his child and lean his
head reproachfully on his young wife's breast--for the last time, it
might be--he must stab her to the heart, shatter the image she held of
him.

"Lucy!" She saw him wrenched with agony, and her own face took the
whiteness of his--she bending forward to him, all her faculties strung
to hearing.

He held her two hands that she might look on him and not spare the
horrible wound he was going to lay open to her eyes.

"Lucy. Do you know why I came to you to-night?"

She moved her lips repeating his words.

"Lucy. Have you guessed why I did not come before?"

Her head shook widened eyes.

"Lucy. I did not come because I was not worthy of my wife! Do you
understand?"

"Darling," she faltered plaintively, and hung crouching under him, "what
have I done to make you angry with me?"

"O beloved!" cried he, the tears bursting out of his eyes. "O beloved!"
was all he could say, kissing her hands passionately.

She waited, reassured, but in terror.

"Lucy. I stayed away from you--I could not come to you, because...