Mildred Keith

He colored slightly, then laughingly answered to her thought rather than her words,

"Don't be alarmed, Marcia; I'm not thinking of her in that way at all."

His face suddenly clouded as with some gloomy recollection.

"Marcia," he said, taking a chair near her side, "my visit is drawing to a close and there is something I must tell you before I go; I came with the purpose of doing so, but hitherto my heart has failed me. We seem to be alone in the house and perhaps there will be no better time than this."

"I think not," she said, "we can secure ourselves from intrusion by locking the door."

He rose, turned the key, and came back.

He did not speak again for a moment, but sat watching Annis with a peculiar expression which excited his cousin's surprise and curiosity and not for the first time either; she had noted it before; the child seemed to both attract and repel him.

More than once Mrs. Keith had seen him snatch her up suddenly with a gesture of strong affection, only to set her down the next minute and turn away as if from something painful to look upon.

"What is it you see in my baby, Horace?" she asked, laying her hand affectionately upon his arm.

"She is a sweet, pretty little thing, yet it gives me more pain than pleasure to look at her," he said sighing and passing his hand across his brow.

"You cannot imagine why it should," he went on, smiling sadly into his cousin's wondering face, "because there is a page in my past life that you have never read."

His features worked with emotion. He rose and paced the floor back and forth several times; then coming to her side again,

"Marcia, I have been a husband; I am a father; my little girl – whom I have never seen – must be just about the age of Annis."

"You, Horace? you are but twenty years old!" dropping her work to look up at him in utter amazement.

"I knew you would be astonished – that you could hardly credit it – but it is true."

Then resuming his seat he poured out in impassioned language, the story already so well known to the readers of the Elsie books – of his visit to New Orleans three years before this, his hasty and clandestine marriage to the beautiful heiress, Elsie Grayson, their speedy separation by her guardian and big father, the subsequent birth of their little daughter and the death of the young mother, following so soon thereafter.

Her work forgotten, her hands lying idly in her lap, her eyes gazing intently into his, Mrs. Keith listened in almost breathless silence, the tears coursing down her cheeks during the saddest passages.

"My poor Horace! my poor, dear cousin!" she said when he had finished. "Oh, it was hard, very hard! Why did you never tell me before."

"I could not, Marcia," he answered in tremulous tones, "it is the first time I have spoken my darling's name since – since I knew that she was lost to me forever."

"Forever! oh do not say that! You have told me she was a sweet Christian girl, and none who trust in Jesus can ever be lost."

"But to me; I am no Christian," he sighed.

"But you may become one. The invitation is to you, 'Come unto me;' and the blessed assurance, 'Him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out.'"

He sat silent, his face averted, his head bowed upon his hands.

She waited a moment, then spoke again.

"Your child, Horace?"

"She is at Viamede with the guardian."

"And you have never seen her?"

"No."

"Oh how can you bear it? doesn't your heart yearn over her? don't you long to have her in your arms?"

"No; why should I? she robbed me of her – my darling wife."

"But you do not know that? and certainly it was innocently, if at all."

"That has always been my feeling."

"You ought not to allow yourself to feel so," she said almost indignantly. "Poor little motherless darling! must she be worse than fatherless too?"

"What would you have, Marcia?" he asked coldly, his face still turned from her, "what could I do with a child? And she is well off where she is; better than she could be anywhere else; – under the care of a pious old Scotch woman who has been house-keeper in the Grayson family for many years, and that of her mammy who nursed her mother before her: a faithful old creature so proud and fond of her young mistress that I doubt if she would have hesitated to lay down her life for her."

"That is well so far as it goes, Horace, but do you wish your child to grow up a stranger to you? would you have no hand in the moulding of her character, the training of her mind?"

"I had not thought of that," he said sighing, "but I do not feel competent to the task."

"But it is your work; a work God himself has appointed you in giving you the child; a work for which he will give wisdom if you seek it of him.

"'If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not: and it shall be given him.'

"And if you neglect it, my dear cousin, – bear with me, while I say it – it will be at your peril."

"How do you mean, Marcia?"

"The day may come when you will want that child's love and obedience: when you will covet them more than any other earthly good, and perhaps, find that they are denied you."

"It is possible you may be right in regard to the first," he said haughtily, his dark eyes flashing, as he turned his face towards her again, "but as to the other – her obedience – it will be strange indeed if I cannot compel it. She may have a strong will, but she will find that mine is yet stronger."

"Horace," said his cousin earnestly, "if you refuse or neglect to do a father's duty by her, what right can you have to claim a child's duty from her?"

"I am not conscious of having neglected my duty toward her thus far," he said, still haughtily. "As I have already explained, she is where, in my judgment, she is better off for the present, than she could be anywhere else. What changes may come in the future I do not know."

"Forgive me if I have seemed to blame you undeservedly," Mrs. Keith said with tears in her eyes; "but ah, my heart yearns over that poor baby!"

She caught up her own and kissed it passionately as she spoke.

"Ah!" she sighed, pressing the little creature to her bosom, "whatever would my darlings do without a father's and a mother's love!"

He walked to the window and stood there for several minutes. Then coming back,

"Marcia," he said, "will you do me the favor to write about this to Aunt Wealthy and tell her I have always felt ashamed of my behavior during my visit to you both, two years ago. I could not bring myself to explain then the cause of my – what shall I call it? sullenness? It must have looked like it to you and her and to all who saw me.

"But you will understand it now and perhaps have some charity for me."