"I got wet, my dear. It was a very hard walk back through the mud. I am quite worn out. I believe I shall go to bed early."
She repeated her question two or three times: not that she suspected the truth, or suspected anything more than just what he told her: but because she was anxious about his health, and because she had a habit of putting many questions. Even in the absorption of his inexplicable trouble she worried him, so that he grew fretful at her importunity, and answered her crisply, that he was well enough, and needed nothing but quiet. Then suddenly he repented himself with invisible tears, wondering at his irrational and seemingly cruel peevishness, and seeming to excuse himself to himself by calling to mind that he was tormented on her account. He almost had a return of his vexation when Lillie commenced upon him about her husband, asking, "Isn't it time to hear, papa? And how soon do you think I will get a letter?"
"Very soon, my dear," he replied gloomily, remembering the wicked letter in his pocket, and clenching his hands under the table to resist a sudden impulse to give it to her.
"I hope there will be no more battles. Don't you think that the fighting is over?"
"Perhaps it may be best for him to have a battle."
"Oh no, papa! He has his promotion. I am perfectly satisfied. I don't want him to fight any more."
The father made no answer, for he could not tell her what he thought, which was that perhaps her husband had better die. It must be remembered that he did not know that the intrigue had terminated.
"Here comes the little Brigadier," said Lillie, when the baby made his usual after-dinner irruption into the parlor.
"Isn't he sweet?" she asked for the ten thousandth time, as she took him from the hands of the nurse and put him in her father's lap. The cooing, jumping, clinging infant clawing at watch-chain, neck-tie and spectacles, soft, helpless and harmless, gave the Doctor the first emotion similar to happiness which he had felt for the last three hours. How we fly for consolation to the dependent innocence of childhood when we have been grievously and lastingly wounded by the perfidy or cruelty of the adult creatures in whom we had put our trust! Stricken ones who have no children sometimes take up with dogs and cats, knowing that, if they are feeble, they are also faithful. But with the baby in his arms, Ravenel could not decide what to do with the baby's father; and so he handed the boy back to his mother, saying with more significance of manner than he intended, "There, my dear, there is your comfort."