Still, she missed her husband, in spite of her self-congratulations that she had acted as she had done; she missed his kindly ways, his affectionate smile, his thousand little acts of tenderness, which had passed unnoticed when done, but now seemed to start out of the past like a reproach for her severity. Had she been too severe after all? He had sinned, it was true! She felt sure that his character, like that of all men, resembled that of her father, and yet--he had indignantly denied his fault; he had pleaded for one kind look, one parting word, and she had refused his prayer. If his heart was evil, would it not have been better for her to have striven to draw it closer to her by that one strand of affection than sever the strand altogether, and let it sink back into the gulf of iniquity from which it strove to emerge.
Alizon Errington was a good woman, who tried to do her best according to her lights, to whom the very thought of vice was utterly abhorrent, yet sometimes, as at this moment, unpleasant accusations of Pharisaism and self-righteousness were in her mind.
All the tenderness and dog-like fidelity of her husband had failed to touch her heart, but now that he had (as she verily believed) slighted her wilfully, and voluntarily left a life of purity for one of guilt, she felt that he was more to her than anyone else in the world, save his child. If his heart, if his instincts, were as evil as she believed, all the more credit to him for the way in which he strove to act honestly, but if on the other hand she had misjudged him and driven a good man into evil by cruel words and harsh looks, then indeed she was to blame. Either way she looked at things now it seemed to her that she was in the wrong, and yet she could not, would not, acknowledge that she had not acted justly.
"If he had only waited for a time," she told herself restlessly. "If he he had only shown by his actions that he desired to do right, I would have believed him in time. But to go back to that vile woman after what I said--no!--he is like all the rest--he makes evil his God, and would break my heart, and ruin his child's future, sooner than deny himself the gratification of his brutal instincts."
Strong words certainly, but then she felt strongly. She was not a broad-minded woman, for the horror with which her father had inspired her, had narrowed down her views of life to Puritanical exactness. She demanded from the world purity--absolute purity--which was an impossibility. What man could come to a woman and say, "I am as pure in my life as you are"? Not one. Why then did she demand it from her husband? but this was quite another view of the question. Her thoughts had gone from one thing to another, until they had become involved and complex.
With a weary sigh she shook her head, as though to drive away all those ideas, and sat down in a low chair, in order to play with the boy.
"Sammy! Sammy! You musn't put pitty things in mouse mouse."
"Mum! mum!" from Sammy, who was making a bold attempt to swallow his coral necklace. Finding this a failure he crawled quickly across the bearskin, drew himself up to his mother's knees, and stood grinning, in a self-congratulatory manner, on his unsteady little legs.
"Come, then," said Alizon, holding out her arms.
Frantic attempts on the part of Sammy to crawl up on her lap, ending with a fall, and then a quick catching up into the desired place under a shower of kisses.