To-morrow has come—to-morrow has gone. What a gulf lies between that yesterday and its to-morrow!
* * * Louisa and I walked to the village—she very much against her will. "It was wrong and foolish," she said; "one should not meddle with vice." And she looked prudent and stern. I tried to speak of the innocent child—of the poor dead mother; and the shadow of motherhood over my own soul taught me compassion towards both. At last, when Louisa was half angry, I said I would go for I had a secret reason which she did not know.—Thank heaven those words were put into my lips.
So, we went. My little beauty of a boy was not there; and I had the curiosity to approach the cottage where his grandmother lived. It stood in a garden, with a high hedge around. I heard a child's laugh, and could not forbear peeping through. There was my little favorite, held aloft in the arms of a man, who stood half hidden behind a tree.
"He looks like a gentleman: perhaps it is the wretch of a father!" whispered Louisa. "Sister, we ought to come away." And she walked forward indignantly.
But I still staid—still looked. Despite my horror of the crime, I felt a sort of attraction: it was some sign of grace in the man that he should at least acknowledge and show kindness to his child. And the miserable mother! I, a happy wife, could have wept to think of her. I wondered, did he think of her, too? He might; for, though the boy laughed and chattered, lavishing on him all those pet diminutives which children make out of the sweet word "father," I did not hear this father answer by a single word.
Louisa came to hurry me away. "Hush!" I said: "one moment and I will go."
The little one had ceased chattering: the father put it down, and came forth from his covert.
Heaven it was my husband!
* * * I think I should then have fallen down dead, save for one thing—I turned and met my sister's eyes. They were full of horror—indignation—pity. She, too, had seen.
Like lightning there flashed across me all the future: my father's wrath—the world's mockery—his shame.