u the
use of this house, and a sufficient income to support it; and also the
custody of our son as long as you remain unmarried. In return, you
must waive all right to the boy for the years you can legally claim
him, and must bind yourself to surrender him to me, or any person I
appoint, at least a month before any such marriage, and never, by word
or act, to interfere in his future life, or any disposition I may think
best to make of him. I should also strongly object to any future
marriage taking place from my house, and should expect legal notice in
ample time to make arrangements about the boy."

"Would you allow me to see the child whenever I wished?"

"Certainly. I'm no brute, and you are his mother. I shall only
stipulate that the meetings take place in some other house than yours.
You are at liberty to visit him as often as you like, so long as you
are faithful to our agreement and leave his mind unbiased. I will
never mention you unkindly to him, and shall expect the same
consideration from you. When he is old enough to judge between us, he
will decide as he thinks right."

"Suppose you marry again, yourself. What about the child then? You
are very hard and uncompromising in your dictation to me, Nesbit, but I
can have feelings and scruples as well as you."

Thorne was startled. He considered that he was behaving well to his
wife. He wanted to behave well to her; to let the past go generously,
so that no shadow of reproach from it might fall upon the future. Her
tart suggestion set the affair in a new light. It was an unpleasant
light, and he turned his back on it, thinking that by so doing he
disposed of it. There was the distance of the two poles between
Pocahontas Mason and Cecil Cumberland. _He_ surely was the best judge
of what would conduce to the welfare of his son.

"We were discussing the probability of your re-marriage, not mine," he
responded coldly; "the reports in circulation have reached even me at
last."

"What reports?" with defiant inquiry.

"That you are seeking freedom from your allegiance to one man, in order
to swear fealty to another. That your vows to me are irksome because
they prevent your taking other vows to Cecil Cumberland. I pass over
the moral aspect of the affair; that must rest with your own
conscience," (it is astonishing how exemplary Thorne felt in
administering the rebuke); "that rests with your conscience," he
repeated, "and with that I've nothing t