“This is more cruel than death,” he muttered.
Meanwhile, the baby—being a young person of an exploring tendency, and loose on the premises—played havoc with his opportunities. Having smashed two Venetian glasses and an atom of old Sèvres, he perceived his father on the sofa, and toddled over to investigate him—but so softly that no notice was taken till Strange suddenly found a tiny fist thrust into his mouth, then he started amazedly and touched the child with quaking awe.
Just then Gwen discovered her loss, ran a few steps forward with outstretched hands, and saw the two—Humphrey and his child.
“Humphrey—Humphrey!” she cried faintly, tottering towards them—then she fell at their feet.
To Strange it was still a cruel dream—her falling but part of it. Between the two, the child stood wondering, then he caught sight of a diamond on his father’s finger. He seized on the finger and dragged it to show his mother, but as she took no notice, he smacked her face soundly with his other hand—and simultaneously the two awoke, he from his delirium, she from her swoon.
And for one moment the two of them peered at each other through the fog of a bitter past. Then she sat up slowly, and looked at his face marvelling above her, and at his hand caught in her baby’s, and broke into half incoherent wild explainings. But suddenly the consciousness that words could in no sort of way touch her case, silenced her; she just sat dumbly on the floor, knowing that she had done evil in ignorance but that she had come up through great tribulation into unutterable joy, full of knowledge, and with a soul as white as Naaman’s skin. And so—as best became her—she simply held up her face to be kissed, while the baby clutched hold of one of her fingers and one of his father’s, and in words all his own and untranslatable, but mightier than those of gods or churches, decreed that henceforth and for ever those two should be one flesh. Which, after all, is the especial mission of his kind.
THE END.
NEW NOVEL
BY
Helen Prothero-Lewis
Hooks of Steel
IN 3 VOLS.
Now ready at all Libraries.