As she passed the room in which Eugene Mallard was quietly sleeping, she knelt and laid her cold white lips on the threshold his feet would press.
How cruelly Heaven had punished her, because in those other days she had longed to be a lady, like the heroines she had read of in the great world of beauty and fashion.
She reached the brook and knelt down beside it. The moon threw a silvery light upon it, and in its song she seemed to hear Eugene's voice mingled with that of the little child she had lost.
"I am coming to you, little baby!" she muttered below her breath. Then aloud, she said: "Good-bye, Eugene—good-bye forever!"
Suddenly a pair of strong arms clasped her, and Eugene's voice whispered:
"Not good-bye, my darling!"
Only the stars and the moonlight and the rippling waters of the brook heard what he said—how he pleaded with her to live only for him and her little child.
Ida could not believe the great happiness that had suddenly fallen upon her like a mantle from God's hands.
They talked by the brook-side for long hours. The next day the master and mistress of the great mansion went away.
When they reached New York, another ceremony was performed, which made Ida Eugene Mallard's wife until death should part them.