What was it that seemed to clutch at her heart like an icy hand, freezing in her veins the warm blood that but a moment before had bounded with passionate joy at thought of seeing her husband again? What meant that chill presentiment of evil that seemed to whisper to her soul, "You are wrong—do not go!"
"I will go!" she said again, as if in defiance of that inward monitor, and folding her arms across her breast, she resumed her slow walk across the floor.
The pretty shawl fell from her shoulders, and lay, like a great brilliant rose, unheeded on the floor; the long, sweeping train of her blue cashmere morning-dress flowed over it as she walked, the white ermine on her breast and at her throat trembling with the agitated throbs of her heart. Her pure, pale cheek, her eyes darkening under their black lashes, the white, innocent brow, the mobile lips, all showed the trace of suffering bravely borne; but now the patient spirit, tried too deeply, rose within her in desperate rebellion.
For this one time she would take her own way, right or wrong. Go to Washington she would, see her husband, herself unseen, once more, she would; then she would go back to her dull, wearisome life—her rebellion extended no farther than that. But she wanted, oh, so much, to see how he looked; to see if suffering had written its dreary line on his face as on hers; to see him because—well—because her whole warm, womanly heart hungered, thirsted for a sight of the dusk-proud beauty of her husband's face.
The honest Irish face of Norah, entering with little Paul, clouded as she took in the scene. She had grown wise enough to read the signs of emotion in the face of the young lady, and now she saw the stamp of pain too plainly written there to be misunderstood.
"Pretty mamma!" lisped the toddling baby, stumbling over the pink shawl in his eagerness to grasp the skirt of the blue dress in his baby fingers.
She stooped and lifted her idol in her arms, pressing him closely and warmly to her aching heart.
"What should I do without my baby, my darling? Why, I should die," she cried, impulsively, as she sunk among a pile of oriental cushions and began to play with the little fellow, her soft laugh blending with his as he caught at her long sunny curls, his favorite playthings, and wound them like golden strands about his fingers.
The shadow of her clouded life never fell upon her child. In her darkest hours she was always ready to respond to his mirth, to furnish new diversion for his infant mind, though sometimes her heart quailed with a great pang of bitterness as the laughing dark eyes, so like his father's, looked brightly up into her face.
But sad as her life was, it would have been unendurable without her baby. He was so bright, so intelligent, so full of rosy, sturdy health and beauty. The slowly increasing baby-teeth, the halting baby-walk, the incoherent attempts at speech, were all sources of daily interest to Grace, who was ardently fond of babies in general, and her own in particular. And this baby did for Grace Winans what many another baby has done for many another wretched wife—saved her heart from breaking.