calming
effect upon herself. Bitter and indignant as she was, she did not want
George to be killed. She clung to her father, beseeching him to promise
her that he would not do such a thing; and all that day and evening she
watched him, unwilling to let him out of her sight.

There was a matter which claimed her immediate attention, and which
helped to withdraw them from the contemplation of their own sufferings.
The infant must be fed and cared for--the unhappy victim of other
people's sins, whose life was now imperiled. A dry nurse must be found
at once, a nurse competent to take every precaution and give the
child every chance. This nurse must be informed of the nature of the
trouble--another matter which required a great deal of anxious thought.

That evening came Madame Dupont, tormented by anxiety about the child's
welfare, and beseeching permission to help take care of it. It was
impossible to refuse such a request. Henriette could not endure to
see her, but the poor grandmother would come and sit for hours in the
nursery, watching the child and the nurse, in silent agony.

This continued for days, while poor George wandered about at home,
suffering such torment of mind as can hardly be imagined. Truly, in
these days he paid for his sins; he paid a thousand-fold in agonized and
impotent regret. He looked back upon the course of his life, and traced
one by one the acts which had led him and those he loved into this
nightmare of torment. He would have been willing to give his life if he
could have undone those acts. But avenging nature offered him no such
easy deliverance as that. We shudder as we read the grim words of the
Jehovah of the ancient Hebrews; and yet not all the learning of modern
times has availed to deliver us from the cruel decree, that the sins of
the fathers shall be visited upon the children.

George wrote notes to his wife, imploring her forgiveness. He poured
out all his agony and shame to her, begging her to see him just once, to
give him a chance to plead his defense. It was not much of a defense, to
be sure; it was only that he had done no worse than the others did--only
that he was a wretched victim of ignorance. But he loved her, he had
proven that he loved her, and he pleaded that for the sake of their
child she would forgive him.

When all this availed nothing, he went to see the doctor, whose advice
he had so shamefully neglected. He besought this man to intercede for
him--which the