'You have robbed me of peace and love, and all a woman counts dear. You betrayed me and deserted me; you slew the husband of the woman you ruined, and fled the country with her. The sole comfort left me is my boy, and I will keep him, God helping me. I will not put his soul in jeopardy by committing him to a father unworthy the name.'
Could this be gentle Mary Gifford? This woman with flashing eyes and set, determined face, from which all tenderness seemed to have vanished as she stood before the man from whom she had suffered a terrible wrong, and who was the father of her child.
The mother, roused in defence of her boy—from what she considered danger both to his body and soul—was, indeed, a different woman from the quiet, dignified matron, who had stood in that very spot with Humphrey Ratcliffe a day or two before, and had turned away with sorrowful resolution from the love he offered her, and which she could not accept.
What if it had been possible for her to take refuge with him! What if she had been, as for years everyone believed her to be, a widow! Now disgraced, and with the death of the man, whom he had killed, on his head, and as one of the hunted and persecuted Papists, her husband lived! If only he had died.
The next moment the very thought was dismissed, with a prayer for grace to resist temptation, and pardon even for the thought, and Mary Gifford was her true self again.
With the fading light of the April evening on her face—pale as death, but no longer resentful—her heart no longer filled with passionate anger and shrinking from the husband who had so cruelly deserted her, she stood before him, quiet and self-possessed, awakening in his worldly and deceitful heart admiration, and even awe.
There was silence between them for a short space.
Suddenly, from the open casement above their heads, came the sound of a child's voice—a low murmur at first, then growing louder—as the dream passed into reality.
'Mother, mother! Ambrose wants mother!'
Then, without another word, Mary Gifford bowed her head, and, passing into the kitchen, closed and barred the door; and, hastening to her room, threw herself on her knees by the child's little bed, crying,—