"I do not know," she said, absently. She balanced herself more comfortably against the fence, and went on with her story with a quiet unconsciousness that balked Lufflin's intention of censure.
"We have been poor in the two or three years just past," she said,—"wanted enough to satisfy even his favorite Saint-Simon's theory. My husband is no"——
"Financier?" gently suggested the Captain.
"No. He could beard the world in defence of an idea; but for bread and butter, ah-h! I'm rougher! I ought to have been the man for that! About a year ago he was offered a chance to go with a geological party to Brazil. I was glad of that. The air and sights of our close court were killing him. I wanted to finish some work I had to do, and then"——
She stopped; a scarlet flush broke over her neck and face.
"Yes, child?"
"God was very good to us,"—in an almost whisper. "Six months after my husband left home, He gave us another child."
"You never told me this," cried Lufflin, aghast.
"I never told Jerome," quietly. "I put my baby out to nurse, where it could breathe air, and not poison,—not far from here. I have left it there since. May-be it was wrong," said poor Charlotte, hiding her face in her hands, with a happy laugh. "It was a whim, I know. I may have wronged him, but I had a fancy to give him his home and his child both upon this Christmas day."
The Captain gasped, took a fresh bit of tobacco, but said nothing.