erable abode which he had found
for himself,--then it would at least be acknowledged that he had
expiated the injury that he had done. She would have his wealth, his
name, his child to comfort her,--and would be troubled no longer by
demands for that obedience which she had sworn at the altar to give
him, and which she had since declined to render to him. Perhaps there
was some feeling that the coals of fire would be hot upon her head
when she should think how much she had received from him and how
little she had done for him. And yet he loved her, with all his
heart, and would even yet dream of bliss that might be possible with
her,--had not the terrible hand of irresistible Fate come between
them and marred it all. It was only a dream now. It could be no more
than a dream. He put out his thin wasted hands and looked at them,
and touched the hollowness of his own cheeks, and coughed that he
might hear the hacking sound of his own infirmity, and almost took
glory in his weakness. It could not be long before the coals of fire
would be heaped upon her head.

"Louey," he said at last, addressing the child who had sat for an
hour gazing through the window without stirring a limb or uttering a
sound; "Louey, my boy, would you like to go back to mamma?" The child
turned round on the floor, and fixed his eyes on his father's face,
but made no immediate reply. "Louey, dear, come to papa and tell him.
Would it be nice to go back to mamma?" And he stretched out his hand
to the boy. Louey got up, and approached slowly and stood between his
father's knees. "Tell me, darling;--you understand what papa says?"

"Altro!" said the boy, who had been long enough among Italian
servants to pick up the common words of the language. Of course he
would like to go back. How indeed could it be otherwise?

"Then you shall go to her, Louey."

"To-day, papa?"

"Not to-day, nor to-morrow."

"But the day after?"

"That is sufficient. You shall go. It is not so bad with you that one
day more need be a sorrow to you. You shall go,--and then you will
never see your father again!" Trevelyan as he said this drew his
hands away so as not to touch the child. The little fellow had put
out his arm, but seeing his father's angry gesture had made no
further attempt at a caress. He feared his father from the bottom of
his little heart, and yet was aware that it was his duty to try to
love papa. He did not understand the meaning of that last threat,
but