The Girls Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 357, October 30, 1886 | Page 2

was about to treat her.
"But Arnaud! Arnaud! where is the baby? Oh, do tell me; it is cruel to keep me in this suspense," sobbed the baroness.
Now, to be cruel to his wife was the very last thing the baron intended; it was only out of the extremity of his jealous love for her that he had sent the baby away. Thoughtless and selfish he might have been, but surely no one could say he had been guilty of cruelty to this wife, whom he loved so madly that even her love for her child had raised the demon of jealousy within his breast. The word "cruel" stung him to the quick; it was a new phase of his conduct, one that had never struck him before, and as he glanced at the poor little baroness, who had half risen on the sofa, and was looking at him with an agonised look on her pretty face, he was seized with remorse, and felt it impossible to go on with the r?le he had attempted to play of the wise father and husband, who had only acted for the good of his wife and child. Already he was beginning to repent of his rash act, and if it had been possible to go after the yacht the chances are the baron would have started at once, and brought back the baby for the pleasure of seeing its mother smile again. As it was impossible, the next best thing was to make the best of it, and if Mathilde could not be comforted in any other way, why he must promise to let her have it back again. He decided all this as he petted the baroness, and tried to comfort her by whispering fond nothings into her ear; but he soon found all his caresses were useless, unless he yielded to her entreaties and told her where the baby was, and as all he knew about it was that it was on board Léon's yacht, on which it was being taken, he believed, to England, though he was by no means sure, this did not tend to allay the poor mother's anxious fears.
Her baby confided to the wild Léon's charge, tossed about in a yacht with not a woman on board to take care of it, her fragile little daughter, on whom the wind had never been allowed to blow, now at the mercy of wind and waves for days, and then, supposing the child was alive, which in her present mood the baroness declared to be impossible, even if it were, not to know where it was till Léon came back, perhaps for a week or more, for the baron dare not tell her it would probably be a month before he returned--oh, it was unbearable! She was sure she could neither eat nor sleep until she had her baby back. Life until then would be a burden to her. What could she do without it? Already she was sure it knew her; and oh, how happy she had been watching by its cradle! If Arnaud only knew how she delighted in nursing and playing with it, even to gaze on it while it slept was a joy to her! Oh, if he only understood, he would never have been so cruel as to send it away.
All the baron's arguments as to the advantages to the baby which were to be derived from his scheme, and the wonderful health and strength it was to derive from leading a less luxurious life, failed to reassure the baroness, and she passed a sleepless night, and looked so ill and miserable the next morning that the baron was angry with her for looking ill, and with himself for being the cause. No one in the house but the baroness had been told the night before what had become of the baby, the general opinion being that it had been taken or sent to some woman in the neighbourhood to look after; but when it became known that it was sent away in Léon's charge no one knew where, the sympathy with the baroness was universal, and the baron found himself looked upon as a jealous tyrant, with no real love for either his wife or child.
"A nice father you are," cried his brother Jacques.
"The idea of trusting Léon with a baby. Why, he will pitch it overboard if it cries," said little Louis, a remark which so annoyed the baron that he promptly seized Louis by the collar and turned him out of the room.
"You really must have been mad, Arnaud, to dream of such a thing as entrusting Léon, of all people in the world, with an infant," said the old baroness, for once taking the part of her daughter-in-law against her