“Drusilla! I repeat that you must not think of taking this step! Not only has your unworthy——”
She looked at him so deprecatingly, that he broke off his speech and began anew.
“Well, well, I will not wound you if I can help it, my dear!—I say, not only has your husband not invited you to return to your home, but he has positively forbidden you to do so. Do you remember, poor child, the terms he used in discarding you?”
“Words spoken in the ‘short madness’ of anger. I do not wish to remember them, dear General Lyon,” she sweetly answered.
“My child! do you know where to write to him?”
“Oh no, sir.”
“Do you think that he will write to you? or do you hope that he will join you at Cedarwood?”
“Oh, no, dear uncle! at least, not for a long time. But I hope that he will feel some interest in his child, and he will inquire about it, and when he finds out what a beautiful boy it is, he will come to see it; and then, then—for the boy’s sake he will forgive the mother.”
“Forgive! Heaven of Heavens, girl! what has he to forgive in you?” indignantly demanded Anna.
“That which a man seldom pardons—although it was done from love to him and his child,” answered Drusilla, in a low voice.