ope that she might
have come to rescue him from the evil of his days. Trevelyan was
standing by, the while, looking on; but he did not speak till she
addressed him.

"I am so thankful to you for bringing him to me," she said.

"I told you that you should see him," he said. "Perhaps it might have
been better that I should have sent him by a servant; but there are
circumstances which make me fear to let him out of my sight."

"Do you think that I did not wish to see you also? Louis, why do
you do me so much wrong? Why do you treat me with such cruelty?"
Then she threw her arms round his neck, and before he could repulse
her,--before he could reflect whether it would be well that he should
repulse her or not,--she had covered his brow and cheeks and lips
with kisses. "Louis," she said; "Louis, speak to me!"

"It is hard to speak sometimes," he said.

[Illustration: "It is hard to speak sometimes."]

"You love me, Louis?"

"Yes;--I love you. But I am afraid of you!"

"What is it that you fear? I would give my life for you, if you would
only come back to me and let me feel that you believed me to be
true." He shook his head, and began to think,--while she still clung
to him. He was quite sure that her father and mother had intended to
bring a mad doctor down upon him, and he knew that his wife was in
her mother's hands. Should he yield to her now,--should he make her
any promise,--might not the result be that he would be shut up in
dark rooms, robbed of his liberty, robbed of what he loved better
than his liberty,--his power as a man. She would thus get the better
of him and take the child, and the world would say that in this
contest between him and her he had been the sinning one, and she the
one against whom the sin had been done. It was the chief object of
his mind, the one thing for which he was eager, that this should
never come to pass. Let it once be conceded to him from all sides
that he had been right, and then she might do with him almost as she
willed. He knew well that he was ill. When he thought of his child,
he would tell himself that he was dying. He was at some moments of
his miserable existence fearfully anxious to come to terms with his
wife, in order that at his death his boy might not be without a
protector. Were he to die, then it would be better that his child
should be with its mother. In his happy days, immediately after
his marriage, he had made a will, in which he had left his enti