"This is not the baby!" she exclaimed, in startled tones. French was the language spoken at Valmondé in those days. "I knew you would be astonished," laughed Désirée, "at the way he has grown. The little _cochon de lait!_ Look at his legs, mamma, and his hands and finger-nails,--real finger-nails. Zandrine had to cut them this morning. Is n't it true, Zandrine?" The woman bowed her turbaned head majestically, "Mais si, Madame." "And the way he cries," went on Désirée, "is deafening. Armand heard him the other day as far away as La Blanche's cabin." Madame Valmondé had never removed her eyes from the child. She lifted it and walked with it over to the window that was lightest. She scanned the baby narrowly, then looked as searchingly at Zandrine, whose face was burned to gaze across the fields. "Yes, the child has grown, has changed;" said Madame Valmondé, slowly, as she replaced it beside its mother. "What does Armand say?" Désirée's face became suffused with a glow that was happiness itself. "Oh, Armand is the proudest father in the parish, I believe, chiefly because it is a boy, to bear his name; though he says not,--that he would have loved a girl as well. But I know it is n't true. I know he says that to please me. And mamma," she added, drawing Madame Valmondé's head down to her, and speaking in a whisper, "he has n't punished one of them--not one of them--since baby is born. Even Négrillon, who pretended to have burnt his leg that he might rest from work--he only, laughed, and said Négrillon was a great scamp. Oh, mamma, I'm so happy; it frightens me." What Désirée said was true. Marriage, and later the birth of his son, had softened Armand Aubigny's imperious and exacting nature greatly. This was what made the gentle Désirée so happy, for she loved him desperately. When he frowned she trembled, but loved him. When he smiled, she asked no greater blessing of God. But Armand's dark, handsome face had not often been disfigured by frowns since the day he fell in love with her. When the baby was about three months old, Désirée awoke one day to the conviction that there was something in the air menacing her peace. It was at first too subtle to grasp. It had only been a disquieting suggestion; an air of mystery among the blacks; unexpected visits from far-off neighbors who could hardly account for their coming. Then a strange, an awful change in her husband's manner, which she dared not ask him to explain. When he spoke to her, it was with averted eyes, from which the old love-light seemed to have gone out. He absented himself from home; and when there, avoided her presence and that of her child, without excuse. And the very spirit of Satan seemed suddenly to take hold of him in his dealings with the slaves. Désirée was miserable enough to die.