"Agreed, with all my heart! unless Mrs. Hammond quarrels with me for robbing her of a portion of your last morning with her."
"She will forgive you!" Lewis rejoined, to spare her the effort of reply.
From her window Sarah saw them whirl off along the beach in sight of the hundreds of spectators on the sands and about the hotels, and recognized the ingenuity of this scheme for proclaiming the amicable feeling between the two.
"But one more scene, and the hateful mockery is over!" thought the wife, as she heard her husband's step outside the door on his return.
She snatched a paper from the table, and seemed absorbed in its contents, not looking up at his entrance. Lewis made several turns through the room, sighed heavily, and once paused, as if about to address her, but changed his mind.
Then sounded from without the fresh, gurgling laugh of a child, and the nurse came in with the baby—rosy and bright—from her morning walk on the shore. She almost sprang from Mary's hold at sight of her father, and dismissing the woman with a word, he took his darling into his arms and sat down behind his wife. Inflexibly sullen, Sarah tried not to listen, as she would not see them; but she heard every sound: the child's soft coo of satisfaction as she nestled in the father's bosom; the many kisses he imprinted upon her pure face and mouth with what agony Sarah well knew—the irregular respiration, sometimes repressed, until its breaking forth was like sobs; and the proud, miserable heart confessed reluctantly that, in one respect, his share of their divided lot was heavier than hers. She was not to witness his final resignation of his idol. Under color of summoning Mary, he carried the infant from the room, and came back without her.
"It is time for me to go now, Sarah!"
His voice was calm, and its firmness destroyed what slender encouragement she might have drawn from the scene with his child, to hope for some modification of his resolution.
"Will you write to me, at regular intervals, to give me news of Belle?"
"Certainly, if such is your wish."