"Derval is asleep?" said he.
"Yes; and the dear pet lamb, how sweetly he does sleep!" replied Mary, her soft voice almost tremulous with the pleasure of her maternal love; "I remained watching him for a time, and wondering—wondering in my heart—"
"What, Mary?"
"What awaited him in the unseen future," she replied, as she fixed her eyes, not upon the face of her husband, but on the far horizon of the sea, yet tinted with ruddy gold by the sun that had set.
"Were the book of destiny laid before you, Mary, would you have the courage to turn a leaf?" asked her husband in a strange and hard voice.
"I fear, Greville, dear, I should lack the courage," said Mary, as she ceased to knit, and her white hands lay idle in her lap.
"If wealth—if riches—be not written there, I care not what the leaf contains! Not that I entirely believe in destiny; in many instances we make our own, as I, to a certain extent, made ours, by becoming a victim of others; but a destiny over which I have no control deprives me of my birthright; and I, who ought now to be twelfth Lord Oakhampton, and tenth Lord of Wistmanswood, am a poor and needy man. So I say again, Mary, if wealth be not before our little Derval, in the years to come, I care not what may be, with all my love of him!'
"Oh, Greville, do not—do not talk thus!" said Mary, imploringly; "suppose death were to come, and our child, the sole bright star in our otherwise cloudy sky, went out, leaving us in utter darkness!" Her voice broke at the idea of the hopeless desolation she conjured up, and her eyes filled with tears, for she was a sensitive creature. "Suppose this were to happen," she continued, "and you saw me, with fond and lingering hands, folding and putting past, as priceless treasures, the little garments they had made, the tiny socks they had knitted, and the broken toys that would be required no more, while turning away heart-sick from the sight of happy parents, whose little ones were spared to them, and striving to console ourselves with the conviction that all things come from Heaven. I share your hope and wish, Greville, that Derval may be rich, and great too, but I would rather that he were good than either!"
"Rich he shall be, I hope, before I die," exclaimed Greville Hampton; "and I have strange dreams at times, Mary, that seem the harbingers of something to come," he added gravely, and in a lower tone, "Wealth——"
"What need of wealth, dearest? we can save, out of our little pittance for Derval; he is the only chick we have to scrape for," she interrupted him, and took his passive hands caressingly within her own.