“I believe you are half right,” he said, sadly.  “She never seemed to belong to me by right—­only a bird I had caught and caged, that loved me well, yet was eager to escape.”

“Such, was the state of the case, I cannot doubt; a more out and out flesh-and-blood organization would suit you better.  Your life is not half spent; the dreary time is to come.  Go back to Bellevue, and get you a kind companion, and let children climb your knees, and surround your hearth.  You would be so much happier.”

“Suggest one, then.  Come, help me to a wife.”

“No, no, I can make no matches; but you know Madame de St. Aube is a widow now.  You were always congenial.”

“Yes, but”—­with a shrug of his shoulders, worthy of a Frenchman—­“que voulez vous?  That woman has five children already, and a plantation mortgaged to Maginnis!”

“Maginnis again!  The very name sends a chill through my bones!  No, that will never do.  Some maiden lady, then—­some sage person of thirty-four or five.”

“I do not fancy such.  I’ll tell you what!  I believe I will go back and court Bertie on some of her play-acting rounds, and mate a decent woman of that little vagabond.  Because she was disappointed once, is that a reason?  Great Heavens! this tongue of mine!  Cut it out, Mrs. Wentworth, and cast it to the seals in the bay.  I came very near—­”

“Betraying what I have long suspected.  Major Favraud.  Who was that man?”

“Don’t ask me, my dear woman; I must not say another word, in honor.  It was a most unfortunate affair—­a sheer misunderstanding.  He loved her all the time; I knew this, but you know her manner!  He did not understand her flippant way; her keen, unsparing, and bitter wit; her devoted, passionate, proud, and breaking heart; and so there was a coolness, and they parted; and what happened afterward nearly killed her!  So she left her home."[8]

“I must not ask you, I feel, for you say you cannot tell me more in honor, but I think I know.  The man, of all the earth, I would have chosen for her.  Oh, hard is woman’s fate!”

To the very last I have reserved what lay nearest my heart of hearts.

Three children have been born to us in California, and have made our home a paradise.  The two elder are sons, named severally for my father and theirs, Reginald and Wardour.

The last is a daughter, a second Mabel, beautiful as the first, and strangely resembling her, though of a stronger frame and more vital nature.  She is the sunshine of the house, the idol of her father and brothers, who all are mine, as well as the fair child of seven summers herself.

Mrs. Austin presides, in imagination, over our nursery, but, in reality, is only its most honored occasional visitor, her chamber being distinct, and my own rule being absolute therein, with the aid of a docile adjunct.

Ernest Wentworth, our adopted son—­so-called for want of any other name—­is the standard of perfection in mind and morals, for the imitation of the rest of the band of children.