He stared and stared from the child to her, in throbbing amazement.
“Us?” he gasped at last. And still his wonder-stricken eyes turned to and fro.
Margaret was surprised in her turn, It was an age of impressions not facts, “What!” she cried, “doth not a father know his own child? and a man of God, too? Fie, Gerard, to pretend! nay, thou art too wise, too good, not to have—why, I watched thee; and e'en now look at you twain! 'Tis thine own flesh and blood thou holdest to thine heart.”
Clement trembled, “What words are these,” he stammered, “this angel mine?”
“Whose else? since he is mine.”
Clement turned on the sleeping child, with a look beyond the power of the pen to describe, and trembled all over, as his eyes seemed to absorb the little love.
Margaret's eyes followed his. “He is not a bit like me,” said she proudly; “but oh, at whiles he is thy very image in little; and see this golden hair. Thine was the very colour at his age; ask mother else. And see this mole on his little finger; now look at thine own; there! 'Twas thy mother let me weet thou wast marked so before him; and oh, Gerard, 'twas this our child found thee for me; for by that little mark on thy finger I knew thee for his father, when I watched above thy window and saw thee feed the birds.” Here she seized the child's hand, and kissed it eagerly, and got half of it into her mouth, Heaven knows how, “Ah! bless thee, thou didst find thy poor daddy for her, and now thou hast made us friends again after our little quarrel; the first, the last. Wast very cruel to me but now, my poor Gerard, and I forgive thee; for loving of thy child.”
“Ah! ah! ah! ah! ah!” sobbed Clement, choking. And lowered by fasts, and unnerved by solitude, the once strong man was hysterical, and nearly fainting.
Margaret was alarmed, but having experience, her pity was greater than her fear. “Nay, take not on so,” she murmured soothingly, and put a gentle hand upon his brow. “Be brave! So, so. Dear heart, thou art not the first man that hath gone abroad and come back richer by a lovely little self than he went forth. Being a man of God, take courage, and say He sends thee this to comfort thee for what thou hast lost in me; and that is not so very much, my lamb; for sure the better part of love shall ne'er cool here to thee; though it may in thine, and ought, being a priest, and parson of Gouda.”
“I? priest of Gouda? Never!” murmured Clement in a faint voice; “I am a friar of St. Dominic: yet speak on, sweet music, tell me all that has happened thee, before we are parted again.”