remembering that my own rash blindness shut me from the Eden that now seems so deliciously alluring, when I realize what might have been for you and me, my punishment indeed appears unendurable.  Ah, no language can describe my feelings, as I looked at that noble, lovely girl.  Oh the fond pride of knowing that she is mine as well as yours!  My wife! my wife, let the holy blue eyes and pure lips of our baby, our daughter, plead her father’s forgiveness——­”

His voice faltered.  There was a deep silence.  Although kneeling so near, he made no attempt to touch her.  For fifteen years she had struggled against all tender memories, and every softening recollection had been harshly banished.  She had trained herself to despise and hate the man who had so blackened her life at its dewy threshold; but the mysterious workings of a woman’s heart baffle experience, analysis, and conjecture.

Listening to the low cadence of the beloved voice that first waked her from the magic realm of childhood, and unsealed the fountain of affection, the days of their courtship stole back; the blissful hours of the brief honeymoon.  He was her lover, her noble young husband; above all, he was the father of her baby; and yielding to the old irresistible infatuation she suddenly laid her hand upon his head.  As yet she had not uttered a syllable since his entrance, but the floodgates were lifted, and he heard the despairing cry of her famished heart: 

“Oh, my husband!  My husband, my own husband!”

He threw his arms around her as she leaned toward him, and drew the head to his shoulder.  So in silence they rested, and he felt that one arm tightened around him, as he knelt holding her to his heart.

“Minnie, your true heart forgives your unworthy husband.  Tell me so, and it will enable me to bear all that the future may contain.  Say, Cuthbert, I forgive you.”

She struggled up, gazed into his eyes, and exclaimed: 

“No; I loved you too well, too insanely ever to forgive, had loved you less, I might have forgiven more.  There is no meekness in my soul, but an intolerable bitterness that mocks and maddens me.  I ought to despise myself, and I certainly shall, for this unpardonable weakness.  But very precious memories unnerved me just then, and I clung, not to you, not to Abbie Ames’ husband, but to the phantom of the Cuthbert whom long ago I loved so well, to the vision of the young bridegroom I worshipped so blindly.  Let me go.  Our interview is ended.”

She withdrew from his arms, and rose.

“Before I go, let me see our child once more.  Let me tell her that her father is inexpressibly proud of the daughter who will honour his unworthy name again.”

“She declines meeting you again.”

“Minnie, don’t teach her to hate me.”