This Man's Wife Part 40

"No, no, mamma, I like to work sometimes--with Mr Bayle and learn, and so I do like the lessons I learn with you. You never look cross at me, and Mr Bayle never does."

"But, my darling, the world could not go on if people were never serious. Why, the sun does not always shine: there are clouds over it sometimes."

"But it's always shining behind the clouds, Mr Bayle says."

"And so is papa's love for his darling shining behind the clouds--the serious looks that come upon his face," cried Millicent. "There, you must remember that."

"Yes," said the child, nodding, and drawing two cl.u.s.ters of curls away from her mother's face to look up at it laughingly and then kiss her again and again. "Oh! how pretty you are, mamma! I never saw any one with a face like yours."

"Silence, little nonsense talker," cried Millicent, with her face all happy smiles and the old look of her unmarried life coming back as she returned the child's caresses.

"I never did," continued Julia, tracing the outlines of the countenance that bent over her, with one rosy finger. "Grandma's is very, very nice, and I like grandpa's face, but it is very rough. Mamma!"

"Well, my darling."

"Does papa love you very, very much?"

"Very, very much, my darling," said her mother proudly.

"And do you love him very, very much?"

"Heaven only knows how dearly," said Millicent in a deep, low voice that came from her heart.

"But does papa know too?"

"Why, of course, my darling."

"I wish he would not say such cross things to you sometimes."

"Yes, we both wish he had not so much trouble. Why, what a little babbler it is to-night! Have you any more questions to ask before we go up and fetch papa down and play to him?"

"Don't go yet," cried the child. "I like to talk to you this way, it's so nice. I say, mamma, do people get married because they love one another?"

"Hush, hush! what next?" said Millicent smiling, as she laid her hand upon the child's lips. "Of course, of course."

Julie caught the hand in hers, kissed it, and held it fast.

"Why does not Mr Bayle love some one?"

A curious, fixed look came over Millicent's face, and she gazed down at her babbling child in a half-frightened way.

"He will some day," she said at last.

"No, he won't," said the child, shaking her head and looking very wise.

"Why, what nonsense is this, Julie?"

"I asked him one day when we were sitting out in the woods, and he looked at me almost like papa does, and then he jumped up and laughed, and called me a little chatterer, and made me run till I was out of breath. But I asked him, though."

"You asked him?"

"Yes; I asked him if he would marry a beautiful lady some day, as beautiful as you are, and he took me in his arms and kissed me, and said that he never should, because he had got a little girl to love--he meant me. And oh! here's papa: let's tell him. No, I don't think I will. I don't think he likes Mr Bayle."

Millicent rose from her knees as Hallam entered the room, looking haggard and frowning. He glanced from one to the other, and then caught sight of himself in the gla.s.s, and saw that there was a patch as of lime or mortar upon his coat.

He brushed it off quickly, being always scrupulously particular about his clothes, and then came towards them.

"Send that child away," he said harshly. "I want to be quiet."

Millicent bent down smiling over the child and kissed her.

"Go to Thisbe now, my darling," she whispered; "but say good-night first to papa, and then you will not have to come to him again. Perhaps he may be out."

The child's face became grave with a gravity beyond its years. It was the mother's young face repeated, with Hallam's dark hair and eyes.

She advanced to him, timidly putting out her hand, and bending forward with that sweetly innocent look of a child ready so trustingly to give itself into your arms as it asks for a caress.

"Good-night, papa dear," she cried in her little silvery voice.

"Good-night, Julie, good-night," he said abruptly; and he just patted her head, and was turning away, when he caught sight of the disappointed, troubled look coming over her countenance, paused half wonderingly, and then bent down and extended his hands to her.

There was a quick hysteric cry, a pa.s.sionate sob or two, and the child bounded into his arms, flung her arms round his neck, and kissed him, his lips, his cheeks, his eyes again and again, in a quick, excited manner.

Hallam's countenance wore a look of half-contemptuous doubt for a moment, as he glanced at his wife, and then the good that was in him mastered the ill. His face flushed, a spasm twitched it, and clasping his child to his breast, he held her there for a few moments, then kissed her tenderly, and set her down, her hair tumbled, her eyes wet, but her sweet countenance irradiated with joy, as, clasping her hands, she cried out:

"Papa loves--he loves me, he loves me! I am so happy now."

Then half mad with childish joy, she turned, kissed her hands to both, and bounded out of the room.

VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER TEN.

HUSBAND AND WIFE.

There was a momentary silence, and then as the door closed, Millicent laid her hands upon her husband's shoulders, and gazed tenderly in his face.

"Robert, my own!" she whispered.

No more; her eyes bespoke the mother's joy at this breaking down of the ice between father and daughter. Then a look of surprise and pain came into those loving eyes, for Hallam repulsed her rudely.

"It is your doing, yours, and that cursed parson's work. The child has been taught to hate me. Curse him! He has been my enemy from the very first."

"Robert--husband! Oh, take back those words!" cried Millicent, throwing herself upon his breast. "You cannot mean it. You know I love you too well for that. How could you say it!"

She clung to him for a few moments, gazing wildly in his face, and then she seemed to read it plainly.

"No, no, don't speak," she cried tenderly. "I can see it all. You are in some great trouble, dear, or you would not have spoken like that.

Robert, husband, I am your own wife; I have never pressed you for your confidence in all these money troubles you have borne; but now that something very grave has happened, let me share the load."

She pressed him back gently to a chair, and, overcome by her earnest love, he yielded and sank back slowly into the seat. The next instant she was at his knees, holding his hands to her throbbing breast.