"No, Gareth, not yet."
"I think I am glad of that," she laughed. "What a great start he will give, and how his eyes will open, and what a light of love will be in them when I run up and put my arms round him."
"Pray God he may," was my thought. I still nurtured the hope that what he had once said to me was true; and that so far as there was room for love in his selfish heart, Gareth filled it. It was largely on that hope, indeed, I was building.
"He will be so glad that—do you know what I have thought, Christabel?"
"No, dear."
"I am going to be very cunning. I am going to use that moment of his delight to urge him to take me to my father and tell him everything. Do you think he will do it?"
"It might be better——" I began, when I stopped suddenly as a new thought occurred to me.
"What might be better, Christabel? Tell me; I am so anxious about this. I have been thinking about it ever since I guessed what your news was, and that you were going to bring Karl to me. Tell me, what would be better?"
"I was thinking it would be better if you could first have done something for him; have won his own father to be reconciled to your marriage."
"Oh, I dare not do that," she cried, shrinking like a frightened child. "Besides, I don't know who is his father."