"IT MAY BE FOR YEARS, AND IT MAY BE FOREVER."
"Enough that we are parted—that there rolls
A flood of headlong fate between our souls."
—Byron.
Between eight and nine o'clock Grace had specified as the hour when her husband might call—and the French clock on the mantel of her private parlor at Willard's hotel chimed the half-hour sharply as he was ushered in by an obsequious waiter.
The room was entirely deserted—no, a child was toddling uncertainly across the floor, jingling in its baby hand that infantile source of delight an ivory rattler, with multitudinous silver bells attached thereto.
What discordance will not a mother endure and call it music for the baby's sake?
One searching glance, and Paul Winans had his child in his arms, clasped close to his hungry, aching heart.
His boy! his! Long months had flown away since he had looked on the face of his child, and now he held him close, his proud, bearded lip pressed to the fragrant lips of the babe, his breath coming thick and fast, his jealous, passionate heart heaving with deep emotion.
But the child started back, frightened at the bearded face of the stranger, and his low cry of fear struck reproachfully to his father's soul.