That informed Lizzī fully: Gill had been compelled to come back to her. Looking around upon her brothers, she tried to smile gratefully, but it was a dim light that flittered across her face to leave a deeper shadow. They had meant well, but far better for her had they left Gill where they found him; for then, had he not returned, she would not have known that she had been his victim, and would have continued to mourn for him as dead, believing herself his widow.
Holding the child before him, she said: "Take your last look at him, John. See the fire-mark. I shivered when I first saw it, but didn't mind it long, for it made me think I had saved you from death once. But I do mind," and her voice rose and vibrated in scorn, "if he bears your name. That would be an awful mark on his soul for God to look at; a horrid ugly scar that would make him hideous to the angels that rung his mother's weddin' bell."
Her voice faltered a little as that pine-grove memory came over her, but it became strong again as she addressed Parson Lawrence.
"Will you baptize my boy?" she asked.
"Yes, yes," the saintly man replied, his voice ill controlled.
"His name will be Peter McAnay," she said simply. Then facing Gill, she held the child to him.
"You may kiss him, John."
The boy cried when Gill pressed his lips to the purple mark.
At that moment a sharp crash of glass was heard. The elbow of a man pushed by the crowd behind him on the porch had gone through a pane in the sash.
"Let down the blind, Hunch," Lizzī commanded.