He drew his breath painfully.  To smooth her face growing rigid with fresh fears at his silence, he met her mouth.  That kiss in which she spoke what her soul had to say, calmed her, and she smiled happily from it, and in her manner reminded him of his first vision of her on the summer morning in the field of the meadow-sweet.  He held her to him, and thought then of a holier picture:  of Mother and Child:  of the sweet wonders of life she had made real to him.

Had he not absolved his conscience?  At least the pangs to come made him think so.  He now followed her leading hand.  Lucy whispered:  “You mustn’t disturb him—­mustn’t touch him, dear!” and with dainty fingers drew off the covering to the little shoulder.  One arm of the child was out along the pillow; the small hand open.  His baby-mouth was pouted full; the dark lashes of his eyes seemed to lie on his plump cheeks.  Richard stooped lower down to him, hungering for some movement as a sign that he lived.  Lucy whispered.  “He sleeps like you, Richard—­one arm under his head.”  Great wonder, and the stir of a grasping tenderness was in Richard.  He breathed quick and soft, bending lower, till Lucy’s curls, as she nestled and bent with him, rolled on the crimson quilt of the cot.  A smile went up the plump cheeks:  forthwith the bud of a mouth was in rapid motion.  The young mother whispered, blushing:  “He’s dreaming of me,” and the simple words did more than Richard’s eyes to make him see what was.  Then Lucy began to hum and buzz sweet baby-language, and some of the tiny fingers stirred, and he made as if to change his cosy position, but reconsidered, and deferred it, with a peaceful little sigh.  Lucy whispered:  “He is such a big fellow.  Oh! when you see him awake he is so like you, Richard.”

He did not hear her immediately:  it seemed a bit of heaven dropped there in his likeness:  the more human the fact of the child grew the more heavenly it seemed.  His son! his child! should he ever see him awake?  At the thought, he took the words that had been spoken, and started from the dream he had been in.  “Will he wake soon, Lucy?”

“Oh no! not yet, dear:  not for hours.  I would have kept him awake for you, but he was so sleepy.”

Richard stood back from the cot.  He thought that if he saw the eyes of his boy, and had him once on his heart, he never should have force to leave him.  Then he looked down on him, again struggled to tear himself away.  Two natures warred in his bosom, or it may have been the Magian Conflict still going on.  He had come to see his child once and to make peace with his wife before it should be too late.  Might he not stop with them?  Might he not relinquish that devilish pledge?  Was not divine happiness here offered to him?—­If foolish Ripton had not delayed to tell him of his interview with Mountfalcon all might have been well.  But pride said it was impossible.  And then injury spoke.  For why was he thus base and spotted to the darling of his love?  A mad pleasure in the prospect of wreaking vengeance on the villain who had laid the trap for him, once more blackened his brain.  If he would stay he could not.  So he resolved, throwing the burden on Fate.  The struggle was over, but oh, the pain!