He had not visited his mother-in-law since the evening he had given her liberty to use her own discretion as to how Isabella and her child should be disposed of.

He feared even to go near the house, for he did not wish to see his child.
Gertrude felt this every time he declined accompanying her to her mother's.

Possessed of a tender and confiding heart, entirely unlike her mother, she sympathized deeply with her husband.

She well knew that all young men in the South, to a greater or less extent, became enamored of the slave-women, and she fancied that his case was only one of the many, and if he had now forsaken all others for her she did not wish to be punished; but she dared not let her mother know that such were her feelings.

Again and again had she noticed the great resemblance between Clotelle and Henry, and she wished the child in better hands than those of her cruel mother.
At last Gertrude determined to mention the matter to her husband.
Consequently, the next morning, when they were seated on the back piazza, and the sun was pouring its splendid rays upon everything around, changing the red tints on the lofty hills in the distance into streaks of purest gold, and nature seeming by her smiles to favor the object, she said,-- "What, dear Henry, do you intend to do with Clotelle ?" A paleness that overspread his countenance, the tears that trickled down his cheeks, the deep emotion that was visible in his face, and the trembling of his voice, showed at once that she had touched a tender chord.