and I intend rigidly to
discharge them. But, Minnie, God knows that you are my true, lawful
wife, and I want here upon my knees, before we part for ever, to tell
you that no other woman ever possessed my heart. I have tried to be a
patient, kind, indulgent husband to Abbie, but when I look at you,
and think of her, remembering that my own rash blindness shut me from
the Eden that now seems so deliciously alluring, when I realize what
might have been for you and me, my punishment indeed appears
unendurable. Ah, no language can describe my feelings, as I looked at
that noble, lovely girl. Oh the fond pride of knowing that she is
mine as well as yours! My wife! my wife, let the holy blue eyes and
pure lips of our baby, our daughter, plead her father's
forgiveness----"

His voice faltered. There was a deep silence. Although kneeling so
near, he made no attempt to touch her. For fifteen years she had
struggled against all tender memories, and every softening
recollection had been harshly banished. She had trained herself to
despise and hate the man who had so blackened her life at its dewy
threshold; but the mysterious workings of a woman's heart baffle
experience, analysis, and conjecture.

Listening to the low cadence of the beloved voice that first waked
her from the magic realm of childhood, and unsealed the fountain of
affection, the days of their courtship stole back; the blissful hours
of the brief honeymoon. He was her lover, her noble young husband;
above all, he was the father of her baby; and yielding to the old
irresistible infatuation she suddenly laid her hand upon his head. As
yet she had not uttered a syllable since his entrance, but the
floodgates were lifted, and he heard the despairing cry of her
famished heart:

"Oh, my husband! My husband, my own husband!"

He threw his arms around her as she leaned toward him, and drew the
head to his shoulder. So in silence they rested, and he felt that one
arm tightened around him, as he knelt holding her to his heart.

"Minnie, your true heart forgives your unworthy husband. Tell me so,
and it will enable me to bear all that the future may contain. Say,
Cuthbert, I forgive you."

She struggled up, gazed into his eyes, and exclaimed:

"No; I loved you too well, too insanely ever to forgive, had loved
you less, I might have forgiven more. There is no meekness in my
soul, but an intolerable bitterness that mocks and maddens me. I
ought to despise myself, and I