he weeks passed, the fair-haired child grew more and more like
his father; but if Lali thought of her husband they never knew it by
anything she said, for she would not speak of him. She also made them
promise that they would not write to him of the child's birth. Richard,
with his sense of justice, and knowing how much the woman had been
wronged, said that in all this she had done quite right; that Frank, if
he had done his duty after marrying her, should have come with her. And
because they all felt that Richard had been her best friend as well as
their own, they called the child after him. This also was Lali's wish.
Coincident with her motherhood there came to Lali a new purpose. She had
not lived with the Armours without absorbing some of their fine social
sense and dignity. This, added to the native instinct of pride in her,
gave her a new ambition. As hour by hour her child grew dear to her,
so hour by hour her husband grew away from her. She schooled herself
against him.--At times she thought she hated him. She felt she could
never forgive him, but she would prove to him that it was she who had
made the mistake of her life in marrying him; that she had been wronged,
not he; and that his sin would face him with reproach and punishment one
day. Richard's prophecy was likely to come true: she would defeat very
perfectly indeed Frank's intentions. After the child was born, so soon
as she was able, she renewed her studies with Richard and Mrs. Armour.
She read every morning for hours; she rode; she practised all those
graceful arts of the toilet which belong to the social convention; she
showed an unexpected faculty for singing, and practised it faithfully;
and she begged Mrs. Armour and Marion to correct her at every point
where correction seemed necessary. When the child was two years old,
they all went to London, something against Lali's personal feelings, but
quite in accord with what she felt her duty.

Richard was left behind at Greyhope. For the first time in eighteen
months he was alone with his old quiet duties and recreations. During
that time he had not neglected his pensioners,--his poor, sick, halt,
and blind, but a deeper, larger interest had come into his life in the
person of Lali. During all that time she had seldom been out of his
sight, never out of his influence and tutelage. His days had been full,
his every hour had been given a keen, responsible interest. As if
by tacit consent, every incident or