Richard had released her, and she took his hand, and he suffered himself to be led to the other side of the bed. His heart began rapidly throbbing at the sight of a little rosy-curtained cot covered with lace like milky summer cloud.
It seemed to him he would lose his manhood if he looked on that child's face.
"Stop!" he cried suddenly.
Lucy turned first to him, and then to her infant, fearing it should have been disturbed.
"Lucy, come back."
"What is it, darling?" said she, in alarm at his voice and the grip he had unwittingly given her hand.
O God! what an Ordeal was this! that to-morrow he must face death, perhaps die and be torn from his darling—his wife and his child; and that ere he went forth, ere he could dare to see his child and lean his head reproachfully on his young wife's breast—for the last time, it might be—he must stab her to the heart, shatter the image she held of him.
"Lucy!" She saw him wrenched with agony, and her own face took the whiteness of his—she bending forward to him, all her faculties strung to hearing.
He held her two hands that she might look on him and not spare the horrible wound he was going to lay open to her eyes.
"Lucy. Do you know why I came to you to-night?"