ain. "That I should give
up my child,--my first-born child, my little delicate boy, who has never
been parted from me. Was it ever heard of that a mother was asked to
give up her child?"

"They have done it," he said,--"you must know that,--when a higher claim
came in."

"Is there any higher claim? Every other is at our own choice, but this is
nature. God made it. It cannot change. There may be other--other"--she
faltered, her voice grew choked,--"but only one mother," she said.

"Other--other?" he cried. "What? To me there has been but one, as you
know. I have put all my chances in one. God made it? Has not God made
you and me one?--whom God has joined together--"

"Oh, Theo." She got up and came towards him, holding out her hands.
"One, to bear each other's burdens, to help each other; not to go
against nature, to abandon what is the first of duties. Theo! oh, help
me; do not make it impossible, do not rend me in two! What can I say to
you? Theo!" She tottered in her weakness; her limbs were not strong
enough to support her. But Warrender made no forward step. He did not
take the hands she held out to him. He had to be firm. It was now or
never, he said to himself.

"If we are ever to live happily together the sacrifice must be made. I
don't want to hurt you, Frances. If I seem harsh, it is for our good,
the good of both of us. Make up your mind. Can any one doubt what is
your first duty? It is to me. It is I that must settle what our life is
to be. It is you who must yield and obey. Are you not my wife? Spare
yourself farther pain, and me," he went on, with all the absolute and
cruel sincerity of youth. He made it up in his own mind that this was
the right thing to do, and steeled himself to resist the appeal of her
weakness, to see her flutter back to the hard bench, and drop down
there, unsupported, unaided. It was for the best, it was for her good,
to put things on a right footing at once and for always. After this,
never a harsh word, never an opposition, more.

Her husband thus having her to himself, standing before her, magisterial,
coldly setting down what her duty was, enforcing obedience,--he who
little more than a year ago---- She wavered back to her bare seat alone,
and sat there, looking up at him till his peroration came to an
end. In these few minutes many things flew through Lady Markland's
thoughts,--unspeakable offence, revolt against the unlovely duty
presented to her, a sudden fierce indigna