your boy, you know by what means
you may acquire them. For another week I shall remain here;--after
that I shall remove far from hence."

"And where will you go, Louis?"

"As yet I know not. To Italy I think,--or perhaps to America. It
matters little where for me."

"And will Louey be taken with you?"

"Certainly he will go with me. To strive to bring him up so that he
may be a happier man than his father is all that there is now left
for me in life." Mrs. Trevelyan had now got the boy in her arms, and
her mother was seated by her on the sofa. Trevelyan was standing away
from them, but so near the door that no sudden motion on their part
would enable them to escape with the boy without his interposition.
It now again occurred to the mother to carry off her prize in
opposition to her husband;--but she had no scheme to that effect laid
with her mother, and she could not reconcile herself to the idea of
a contest with him in which personal violence would be necessary.
The woman of the house had, indeed, seemed to sympathise with her,
but she could not dare in such a matter to trust to assistance from a
stranger. "I do not wish to be uncourteous," said Trevelyan, "but if
you have no assurance to give me, you had better--leave me."

Then there came to be a bargaining about time, and the poor woman
begged almost on her knees that she might be allowed to take her
child up-stairs and be with him alone for a few minutes. It seemed
to her that she had not seen her boy till she had had him to herself,
in absolute privacy, till she had kissed his limbs, and had her hand
upon his smooth back, and seen that he was white and clean and bright
as he had ever been. And the bargain was made. She was asked to
pledge her word that she would not take him out of the house,--and
she pledged her word, feeling that there was no strength in her for
that action which she had meditated. He, knowing that he might still
guard the passage at the bottom of the stairs, allowed her to go with
the boy to his bedroom, while he remained below with Lady Rowley. A
quarter of an hour was allowed to her, and she humbly promised that
she would return when that time was expired.

Trevelyan held the door open for her as she went, and kept it open
during her absence. There was hardly a word said between him and Lady
Rowley, but he paced from the passage into the room and from the room
into the passage with his hands behind his back. "It is cruel," he
said o