"When she returned to me," my mother resumed, "she was not alone.
She had with her a lovely little girl, just old enough to walk
with the help of her mother's hand. She tenderly kissed the
child, and then she put it on my lap. 'There is my only comfort,'
she said, simply; 'and there is the obstacle to my ever becoming
Mr. Germaine's wife.' "

Van Brandt's child! Van Brandt's child!

The postscript which she had made me add to my letter; the
incomprehensible withdrawal from the employment in which she was
prospering; the disheartening difficulties which had brought her
to the brink of starvation; the degrading return to the man who
had cruelly deceived her--all was explained, all was excused now!
With an infant at the breast, how could she obtain a new
employment? With famine staring her in the face, what else could
the friendless woman do but return to the father of her child?
What claim had I on her, by comparison with _him_? What did it
matter, now that the poor creature secretly returned the love
that I felt for her? There was the child, an obstacle between
us--there was _his_ hold on her, now that he had got her back!
What was _my_ hold worth? All social proprieties and all social
laws answered the question: Nothing!

My head sunk on my breast; I received the blow in silence.

My good mother took my hand. "You understand it now, George?" she
said, sorrowfully.

"Yes, mother; I understand it."

"There was one thing she wished me to say to you, my dear, which
I have not mentioned yet. She entreats you not to suppose that
she had the faintest idea of her situation when she attempted to
destroy herself. Her first suspicion that it was possible she
might become a mother was conveyed to her at Edinburgh, in a
conversation with her aunt. It is impossible, George, not to feel
compassionately toward this poor woman. Regrettable as her
position is, I cannot see that she is to blame for it. She was
the innocent victim of a vile fraud when that man married her;
she has suffered undeservedly since; and she has behaved nobly to
you and to me. I only do her justice in saying that she is a
woman in a thousand--a woman worthy, under happier circumstances,
to be my daughter and your wife. I feel _for_ you, and feel
_with_ you, my dear--I do, with my whole heart."

So this scene in my life was, to all appearance, a scene closed
forever. As it had been with my love, in the days of my boyhood,
so it was again now with the love of my riper age!

Later in the day, when I had in some degree recovered my
self-possession, I wrote to Mr. Van Brandt--as _she_ had foreseen
I should write!--to apologize for breaking my engagement to dine
with him.

Could I trust to a letter also, to say the farewell words for me
to the woman whom I had loved and lost? No! It was better for
her, and better for me, that I should not write. And yet the idea
of leaving her in silence was more than my fortitude could
endure. Her last words at parting (as they were repeated to me by
my mother) had expressed the hope that I should not think hardly
of her in the future. How could I assure her that I should think
of her tenderly to the end of my life? My mother's delicate tact
and true sympathy showed me the way. "Send a little present,
George," she said, "to the child. You bear no malice to the poor
little child?" God knows I was not hard on the child! I went out
myself and bought her a toy. I brought it home, and before I sent
it away, I pinned a slip of paper to it, bearing this
inscription: "To your little daughter, from George Germaine."
There is nothing very pathetic, I suppose, in those words. And
yet I burst out crying when I had written them.

The next morning my mother and I set forth for my country-house
in Perthshire. London was now unendurable to me. Traveling abroad
I had tried already. Nothing was left but to go back to the
Highlands, and to try what I could make of my life, with my
mother still left to live for.

CHAPTER XVI.

MY MOTHER'S DIARY.

THERE is something repellent to me, even at this distance of
time, in looking back at the dreary days, of seclusion which
followed each other monotonously in my Highland home. The actions
of my life, however trifling they may have been, I can find some
interest in recalling: they associate me with my
fellow-creatures; they connect me, in some degree, with the
vigorous movement of the world. But I have no sympathy with the
purely selfish pleasure which some men appear to derive from
dwelling on the minute anatomy of their own feelings, under the
pr essure of adverse fortune. Let the domestic record of our
stagnant life in Perthshire (so far as I am concerned in it) be
presented in my mother's words, not in mine. A few lines of
extract from the daily journal which it was her habit to keep
will tell all that need be told before this narrative advances to
later dates and to newer scenes.




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