When they had vanished she stood like a statue, till the prattling of the boy on her arm recalled her to herself.
"He spoke not one word to me," she said, as she put the boy down, "not one word. Oh, to hear the tone of his voice once more—only once more." The door was open through which they had passed, and her burning eyes seemed to pursue the form last vanished through it. She silently rose, like one in a dream, and walked slowly, slowly along the corridor that led to the library.
Little Willie pulled over mamma's willow work-stand first, and then found harmless amusement in winding a spool of crimson embroidering-silk around and around the legs of a convenient table.
What was it that turned his little beating heart and his puny white face to stone all at once? Was this really a Medusa on which he looked? The long ringlets seemed serpents, indeed; every one of them instinct with the wild despair the bitter hatred pictured on the face that looked so meek and inoffensive but a while ago. "His bride!"—the serpents hissed it into her ears—"His bride! Never—never. She shall die—and he? I will murder him with these hands, first. His bride—and I am to be a friend to her—ha! ha! ha! The dotard." Every one of the serpents echoed the mad laugh, as the woman threw back her head and clinched her hands in wild defiance. The child broke out into shrill complaining cries, and she sprang toward him, seized him and shook him by the shoulders till his breath failed. But in the midst of her mad fury the door opened, after a soft knock, and a female servant entered the room.
"Is Master Willie troublesome?" she asked. "Dear heart; let me take him, mum."
"Leave the room instantly, nurse; Master Willie is naughty and will remain with me."
Two little arms were stretched out imploringly; but nurse had to withdraw—with her own opinion of Master Willie's naughtiness, and "Missus' temper."
But the furies were banished, and when father and son entered the room some time after to say that they would take lunch down town, "Sylvia," as the old man addressed her, came forward quietly, leading the child by the hand, and spoke words of welcome to him, in his little brother's name. And she gave him her hand as she said "good-by," to the old man's unspeakable joy.
Poor old man! He fondly dreamed the gods were propitiated, the furies appeased; that the son whom he really loved had been restored to his rightful place, and would be guardian at some future day to the child of his old age—the son his idolized young wife had given him.