g in his manner terrifies her; she feels her face blanching.
Words are denied her, but she makes a faint movement to assent with her
hand. What is he going to say!

"What if I should decide, then, on taking my son with me?" says he
violently. "Who is there to prevent me? Not you, or another. Thus I
could cut all ties and put you out of my life at once and forever!"

He had certainly not calculated on the force of his words or his manner.
It had been a mere angry suggestion. There was no crudity in Baltimore's
nature. He had never once permitted himself to dwell upon the
possibility of separating the boy from his mother. Such terrible revenge
as that was beyond him, his whole nature would have revolted against it.
He had spoken with passion, urged by her contempt into a desire to show
her where his power lay, without any intention of actually using it. He
meant perhaps to weaken her intolerable defiance, and show her where a
hole in her armor lay. He was not prepared for the effect of his words.

An ashen shade has overspread her face; her expression has become
ghostly. As though her limbs have suddenly given way under her, she
falls against the mantel-piece and clings to it with trembling fingers.
Her eyes, wild and anguished, seek his.

"The child!" gasps she in a voice of mortal terror. "The child! Not the
child! Oh! Baltimore, you have taken all from me except that. Leave me
my child!"

"Good heavens! Don't look at me like that," exclaims he, inexpressibly
shocked--this sudden and complete abandonment of herself to her fear has
horrified him. "I never meant it. I but suggested a possibility. The
child shall stay with you. Do you hear me, Isabel! The child is yours!
When I go, I go alone!"

There is a moment's silence, and then she bursts into tears. It is a
sharp reaction, and it shakes her bodily and mentally. A wild return of
her love for him--that first, sweet, and only love of her life, returns
to her, born of intense gratitude. But sadly, slowly, it dies away
again. It seems to her too late to dream of that again. Yet perhaps her
tears have as much to do with that lost love as with her gratitude.

Slowly her color returns. She checks her sobs. She raises her head and
looks at him still with her handkerchief pressed to her tremulous lips.

"It is a promise," says she.

"Yes. A promise."

"You will not change again--" nervously. "You----"

"Ah! doubt to the last," says he. "It is a promise from me to y