“I did not think of going to a strange place, Alice,” said I.
“Then you thought of Cambridge, Miss Hester,” continued Alice, rapidly; “for my part, I’ve no heart to go back to Cambridge, I’d rather go anywhere than there; they’d say it was to vex Mr. Southcote you went; they say a deal of malicious things, and everybody knows us there, and it’s a dreary house for you to go back to, dear; you’d be sure to feel it so, even with baby. My darling, don’t go there; I’ve come to like this little place, we have it all to ourselves, and now it’s like home.”
“Then do you think there is no other home I have a right to, Alice?” I asked. I felt very much cast down and humbled because she never seemed to think of that. Perhaps, indeed, I had no right to go back to the home I had left.
“If you mean that, if you can think of that, Miss Hester,” cried Alice, in a tremulous voice.
“Should I not think of it? will he not permit me to live there again?” said I, not without some pride, though with more sadness. “I suppose you know my husband’s purposes better than I do; Alice, it is a sad state of matters; but I have been very wrong, and even though he should refuse to admit me, I must go; I have been very unjust to him; my baby belongs as much to him as to me. I have deprived my husband of his rights, and now I must restore them to him.”
“I do not understand you, Miss Hester,” said Alice, looking almost frightened.
“Baby has a father as well as a mother, Alice,” I repeated; “and I am wronging my husband. I know he has seen little Harry, but he ought to be able to see him every day as I do. I have no right to keep my darling all to myself; he belongs to his father as much as to me, so I have made a vow to go home.”
“Only because it is right, Miss Hester?” asked Alice.
“Do you think anything else would conquer me?” I cried, keeping back my tears with an effort. “I could die by myself without murmuring. I don’t ask to be happy, as people call it; but I will not do him injustice—he has a right to his child.”
After this petulant speech, which, indeed, excited and unsettled as I was by the sudden idea that my husband might not desire to receive me, I could not restrain, I settled myself in my chair, and half from pure wilfulness, half because my mind was so much occupied that I had no great inclination to rest, I made Alice lie down, and continued in the chair myself. Hushed and nestling close to my breast, Baby slept so sweet a sleep that it was a delight to see him; and my thoughts were free to speculate on my plans. Could it be possible that bringing his son, his heir, with me—or, indeed, coming myself in any guise—I would be unwelcome at Cottiswoode? The thought was overwhelming. I was almost seized again with the same dreadful spasm of heartache and weakness which had attacked me on the day of Baby’s birth. Was it possible—was it complete alienation, and not mere separation?—had I estranged his heart entirely from me? More than that, the fiend began to whisper—it was all deception—it was all a generous impulse; he never did love me at all—he was only anxious to restore to me my lost inheritance, to make up to me for all he had deprived me of.