"Do you think your not speaking all these years was best for the child?"
he asked.

Her lips trembled. "Oh, that thought," she said, "that thought has made
me unhappy so often! It comes to me at night as I lie sleepless, and I
wonder if my child will grow up and turn against me one day. Yet I did
what I thought was right, Ranulph, I did the only thing I could do. I
would rather have died than--"

She stopped short. No, not even to this man who knew all could she speak
her whole mind; but sometimes the thought came to her with horrifying
acuteness: was it possible that she ought to have sunk her own
disillusions, misery, and contempt of Philip d'Avranche, for the child's
sake? She shuddered even now as the reflection of that possibility came
to her--to live with Philip d'Avranche!

Of late she had felt that a crisis was near. She had had premonitions
that her fate, good or bad, was closing in upon her; that these days in
this lonely spot with her child, with her love for it and its love for
her, were numbered; that dreams must soon give way for action, and this
devoted peace would be broken, she knew not how.

Stooping, she kissed the little fellow upon the forehead and the eyes,
and his two hands came up and clasped both her cheeks.

"Tu m'aimes, maman?" the child asked. She had taught him the pretty
question.

"Comme la vie, comme la vie!" she answered with a half sob, and caught
up the little one to her bosom. Now she looked towards the window.