Blanche was weeping over the cradle of her child, whom she had just rocked asleep, when the door opened, and the servant put in her head to say,—
"Please, mum, a gentleman."
In another instant, Captain Heath stood before her with outstretched hand, and embarrassed countenance: she grasped his hand in both of hers and pressed it warmly, for she felt that a deliverer was near. Since last they had met, what changes in her life! What had they both not undergone! He was much thinner, and looked older. Sorrow had deeply lined his noble brow, and dimmed his kind blue eye. He had sought in travel to forget the cause of his voluntary exile; and had learned, if not to forget, at least to master his feelings. When men have passed the impressionable and changeable age of youth, love becomes a more serious and enduring passion with them—it becomes consolidated in their manhood. And Captain Heath—too old not to have lost all the volatility of youth, but still too young to have lost its fervour—found that his passion for Blanche was ineffaceable.
Had he, then, returned with any hopes? No; his was one of those strong, brave, manly natures which know how to endure any calamity, any condition, so soon as it is recognised as inevitable; they endure, without childish repining, what they know must be endured; they brace their minds to the struggle, and they conquer at least that weak and fretful anxiety which attends upon those who cannot calmly look fate in the face.
He returned, but it was to watch over his beloved; and on his return, what was his horror to hear of the situation into which her wretched husband had precipitated her!
Blanche was embarrassed, yet delighted. From childhood she had known him, and loved him almost as a father; and to her old affection there was now added, the unconscious flattery of her knowledge of his love for her. No woman is ever insensible to such flattery; the man who loves her, though hopelessly, is always interesting in her eyes. Blanche was eminently a woman.
"How kind of you to come and see us," she said, "and in such a place as this! But then you are one of our true friends, and poverty cannot scare you."
"Yes, Blanche, I am your friend: always remember that, and in any difficulty, be sure not to forget it. But let me see your child: she is asleep?—what a beauty! How you must love it! Dear little thing, how quiet its breathing! may I kiss it? will she wake up?"
"No; kiss her gently: she is so used to it!"
He stooped down, and kissed its warm, soft cheek, and then gazed at it for some minutes in silence. With a mother's pride, Blanche watched him, occasionally looking down upon her darling, with that yearning tenderness, which only mothers know.