ite
the Galilean story in letters of Hell, and give mankind for ever
to be the thrall of the fallen angel his father! And now the babe
at its birth was snatched away to the waters of baptism, and poor
Satan--alas!--obliged to cast about for some new plan of campaign;
which, to say truth, he must have found, and practised with some
success. But Rosalind had never read this story. Had she done so she
might have felt, as we do, that the tears of an absolutely blameless
mother might serve to cleanse the inherited sin from a babe unborn as
surely as the sacramental fount itself.

And it may be that some such thought had woven itself into the story
Fenwick's imagination framed for Rosalind the evening before--that time
that she said of Sally, "She is not a devil!" The exact truth, the
ever-present record that was in her mind as she said this, must remain
unknown to us.

But to return to her as she is now, racked by a twofold mental fever,
an apprehension of a return of Fenwick's memory, and a stimulated
recrudescence of her own; with the pain of all the scars burnt in
twenty years ago revived now by her talk with him of a few hours since.
She could bear it no longer, there alone in the darkness of the night.
She _must_ get at Sally, if only to look at her. Why, that child never
could be got to wake unless shaken when she was wanted. Ten to one she
wouldn't this time. And it would make all the difference just to see
her there, alive and leagues away in dreamland. If her sleep lasted
through the crackle of a match to light her candle, heard through the
open door between their rooms, the light of the candle itself wouldn't
wake her. Rosalind remembered as she lit the candle and found her
dressing-gown--for the night air struck cold--how once, when a
ten-year-old, Sally had locked herself in, and no noise or knocking
would rouse her; how she herself, alarmed for the child, had thereon
summoned help, and the door was broken open, but only to be greeted
by the sleeper, after explanation, with, "Why didn't you knock?"

She was right in her forecast, and perhaps it was as well the girl did
not wake. She would only have had a needless fright, to see her mother,
haggard with self-torment, by her bedside at that hour. So Rosalind
got her full look at the rich coils of black hair that framed up the
unconscious face, that for all its unconsciousness had on it the
contentment of an amused dreamer, at the white ivory skin it set off
so