When the baby was brought to her, she hardly dared look at it, not knowing what horror might have come from those ghastly nights spent with the Sultan Casim Ammeh.
But when she looked, it was not his face, dark and cruel, that looked back at her.
In miniature, she saw the face of Raoul Le Breton!
This son of hers did not owe his life to the Sultan. He was a legacy from her murdered husband. Something that belonged to her lost life.
With a wild sob of joy, Annette held out weak arms for her baby. Weeping she strained the mite to her breast, baptizing it with her tears. Tears of happiness this time.
Light and love had come into her life again. For Raoul was not dead. He had come back to her. Weak and tiny he lay upon her heart, hers to love and cherish.
She was lying on her couch one day, too absorbed in tracing out each one of her dead lover's features in the tiny face pillowed on her breast, to notice what was happening, when the voice she dreaded said in a fierce, fond manner:
"So, Pearl of my Heart, you love my son, even if you hate me."
Annette did not know what the Sultan said. But she held her child closer, watching its father's murderer with fear and loathing; afraid that he might put his dark, defiling hands upon her treasure.
But he did not attempt to touch either her or the child.