ately. When he frowned she trembled, but loved him. When he
smiled, she asked no greater blessing of God. But Armand's dark,
handsome face had not often been disfigured by frowns since the day he
fell in love with her.

When the baby was about three months old, Desiree awoke one day to the
conviction that there was something in the air menacing her peace.
It was at first too subtle to grasp. It had only been a disquieting
suggestion; an air of mystery among the blacks; unexpected visits from
far-off neighbors who could hardly account for their coming. Then a
strange, an awful change in her husband's manner, which she dared not
ask him to explain. When he spoke to her, it was with averted eyes, from
which the old love-light seemed to have gone out. He absented himself
from home; and when there, avoided her presence and that of her child,
without excuse. And the very spirit of Satan seemed suddenly to take
hold of him in his dealings with the slaves. Desiree was miserable
enough to die.

She sat in her room, one hot afternoon, in her peignoir, listlessly
drawing through her fingers the strands of her long, silky brown hair
that hung about her shoulders. The baby, half naked, lay asleep upon
her own great mahogany bed, that was like a sumptuous throne, with its
satin-lined half-canopy. One of La Blanche's little quadroon boys--half
naked too--stood fanning the child slowly with a fan of peacock
feathers. Desiree's eyes had been fixed absently and sadly upon the
baby, while she was striving to penetrate the threatening mist that she
felt closing about her. She looked from her child to the boy who stood
beside him, and back again; over and over. "Ah!" It was a cry that she
could not help; which she was not conscious of having uttered. The blood
turned like ice in her veins, and a clammy moisture gathered upon her
face.

She tried to speak to the little quadroon boy; but no sound would come,
at first. When he heard his name uttered, he looked up, and his mistress
was pointing to the door. He laid aside the great, soft fan, and
obediently stole away, over the polished floor, on his bare tiptoes.

She stayed motionless, with gaze riveted upon her child, and her face
the picture of fright.

Presently her husband entered the room, and without noticing her, went
to a table and began to search among some papers which covered it.

"Armand," she called to him, in a voice which must have stabbed him, if
he was human. But he did