ask you to come here to tell you
that, or to remind you of it; but--but when I was crazy, I said so many
worse, dreadful things of HIM; and you--YOU will be left behind to tell
him of it."

Rand was vaguely murmuring something to the effect that "he knew she
didn't mean anything," that "she musn't think of it again," that "he'd
forgotten all about it," when she stopped him with a tired gesture.

"Perhaps I was wrong to think, that, after I am gone, you would care to
tell him anything. Perhaps I'm wrong to think of it at all, or to care
what he will think of me, except for the sake of the child--his child,
Rand--that I must leave behind me. He will know that IT never abused
him. No, God bless its sweet heart! IT never was wild and wicked and
hateful, like its cruel, crazy mother. And he will love it; and you,
perhaps, will love it too--just a little, Rand! Look at it!" She tried
to raise the helpless bundle beside her in her arms, but failed. "You
must lean over," she said faintly to Rand. "It looks like him, doesn't
it?"

Rand, with wondering, embarrassed eyes, tried to see some resemblance,
in the little blue-red oval, to the sad, wistful face of his brother,
which even then was haunting him from some mysterious distance. He
kissed the child's forehead, but even then so vaguely and perfunctorily,
that the mother sighed, and drew it closer to her breast.

"The doctor says," she continued in a calmer voice, "that I'm not doing
as well as I ought to. I don't think," she faltered, with something of
her old bitter laugh, "that I'm ever doing as well as I ought to, and
perhaps it's not strange now that I don't. And he says that, in case
anything happens to me, I ought to look ahead. I have looked ahead.
It's a dark look ahead, Rand--a horror of blackness, without kind faces,
without the baby, without--without HIM!"

She turned her face away, and laid it on the bundle by her side. It was
so quiet in the cabin, that, through the open door beyond, the faint,
rhythmical moan of the pines below was distinctly heard.

"I know it's foolish; but that is what 'looking ahead' always meant to
me," she said, with a sigh. "But, since the doctor has been gone, I've
talked to Mrs. Sol, and find it's for the best. And I look ahead, and
see more clearly. I look ahead, and see my disgrace removed far away
from HIM and you. I look ahead, and see you and HE living together
happily, as you did before I came between you. I look ahead, and s