Baby Belle slumbered on, happily wandering through the guileless mazes of baby dreamland; one little arm, bared from the sleeve of her gown, thrown above her head--the hand of the other cradling her cheek. The father ventured to press a light kiss upon the red lips. In his desolation, he craved this trifling solace. The child's face was contorted by an expression of discomfort, and, still dreaming, she murmured, in her inarticulate language, some pettish expression of disgust. "My very child shrinks from me! It is in the blood!" said the unhappy man, drawing back from the crib. If his resolution had waned at sight of the sleeper, it was fixed again when he returned to his chair in the outer room. He raised his head from his folded arms when he heard Philip and Sarah approaching, but did not otherwise alter his position. The low tone of their parting words--one soon learned by the sojourners in hotels and watering-places, where thin partitions and ventilators abound--was, to him, the cautiously repressed voice of affectionate good-nights. But one clause was distinct--"What will Hammond say, when he hears the story?" They jested thus of him, then. One of them, at least, should learn ere long what he would say. "Lewis, you here!" Sarah changed color with amazement and vague alarm--emotion that paralyzed her momentarily. Then, as she discerned the tokens of disorder in his dress and countenance, she hurried forward. "What has brought you so unexpectedly? Are you sick? Has anything happened?" He did not rise; and, resting her hand on his shoulder, she stooped for a kiss. But his stern gaze never moved from hers--anxious and inquiring--and his lips were like stone. "Lewis, speak to me! If you have dreadful news to tell me, for pity's sake, do not keep me in suspense!" "I have nothing to say that will be new to you," he said, without relaxing his hard, cold manner, "and not a great deal that ought to have been kept back from me when I wished to marry you, believing that you had a heart to give me with your hand." As if struck in the face, Sarah sank back into a chair, speechless and trembling.