"A stranger to my own child," he muttered, bitterly. "Why, my baby, my baby, do you not know your own papa?"
"Mamma! papa!" repeated the child, and with a sunny, fearless smile, he stroked the noble brow that bent over him.
Grace had taught his baby lips to love the name of "papa," and now at the very sound his terror was removed, and he nestled closer in the arms that held him as though the very name were a synonym for everything that was sweet and gentle.
The unhappy mother entering at that moment with pride and reserve sitting regnant on her brow, reeled backward at that sight, with a quivering lip, and pale hands clasped above her wildly throbbing heart.
It was but for a moment. As he turned to the rustle of her silken robe, with their child clasped in one strong arm, she came forward slowly, very slowly, but standing before him at last with bowed head and hands clasped loosely together.
Captain Clendenon had said of her long before, that as much of an angel as was possible for mortal to possess was about her. I don't know about its being so much angel—I, who know women better than the captain did, think that the best of them have quite sufficient of the opposite attribute about them; but, at this moment, all of the angel within her was roused by the sight of her husband with their child in his arms.
A moment before her soul had been charged with desperate anger and rebellion—now her face wore a soft, sad tenderness, her lifted eyes the clear glory of a suppliant angel's.
"Oh, my husband," she breathed, in low, intense accents, "you have scorned all words of mine, turned away from me with my defense unheard—let the pure love of our innocent babe plead for its innocent mother!"
It was like the low plaint for forgiveness from a wayward child that comes sobbing home to its mother with its small fault to confess—and she was so child-like, so very young, so very wretched. A sharp thrill of agonized pity and self-reproach made his firm lip quiver as he looked down at her, fiery love and hate struggling in his soul. A wild impulse to clasp her to his bosom—to crush against his sore heart all that pale yet glowing beauty, for one moment rushed over him, to be sharply dispelled by the memory of his jealous vow, and he answered not, but gazed on her for speechless moments, marking with eyes that had hungered weary months for a sight of her, every separate charm that distinguished this fatally fairest of women.