“But you didn't ever so long at first; you didn't yesterday, when I asked you to see my church. You didn't just this minute, when I brought my mother's letter.”
“But I do now, ever and ever so much,” she said, adopting his tone, and, taking him into her arms, she pressed him passionately to her breast and kissed him on his brow, on his cheeks, and on his red lips. Then, holding him in her arms, and with no word of explanation to Galt, she rose. “Put your arms close around my neck,” she said, “and hug me tight. I am going to run over and see your mother.”
The child complied, timidly, a delicate flush of appreciation on his mobile face. Then she put him down, and, still not looking at Galt, she said:
“No, you needn't come, Lionel; I'll only be there a minute to return the letter. You may stay here and entertain your—your good friend.”
Galt, who had risen, stood looking after her for a moment, his countenance dark with the ever-constant despair within him. He felt the tiny, confident hands of his child as they pressed against his legs, and looked down into the sweetly smiling, upturned face.
“They all like me now,” Lionel said. “She was the only one that didn't, but she says she does now. She kissed me. Did you see her? Oh, she's so pretty! She is—no, she isn't, but she is nearly as pretty as my mother.”
Galt sat down and drew the boy first to a seat on his knee and then into his arms.
“She knows the truth,” he said to himself, in a tone of desperate indifference to fate. “Something in that letter told her.”