But--she remembered it now--when her child was born, this little waif, the fruit of a man's hot, malicious hour, she wrapped it in her arms, pressed its delicate flesh to the silken folds of her bosom, and weeping, whispered only: "My child, my little, little child!" She had never, as many a wife far from her husband has done, talked to her child of its father, told it of his beauty and his virtues, arrayed it day by day in sweet linen and pretty adornments, as if he were just then knocking at her door; she had never imagined what he would say when he did come.

What could such a father think of his child, born of a woman whose very life he had intended as an insult?
No, she had loved it for father and mother also.

She had tried to be good, a good mother, living a life unutterably lonely, hard in all that it involved of study, new duty, translation, and burial of primitive emotions.

And with all the care and tearful watchfulness that had been needed, she had grown so proud, so exacting--exacting for her child, proud for herself.
How could she know now that this hasty declaration of affection was anything more than the mere man in him?
Years ago she had not been able to judge between love and insult--what guarantee had she here?
Did he think that she could believe in him?
She was not the woman he had married, he was not the man she had married.

He had deceived her basely--she had been a common chattel.