The Man | Page 8

his head beside her on
the pillow; his arms went tenderly round her as though by his iron
devotion and strength he would shield her from all harm. Her voice
came very low and in broken gasps; she was summoning all her
strength that she might speak:
'My dear, dear husband, I am so sad at leaving you! You have made me
so happy, and I love you so! Forgive me, dear, for the pain I know you
will suffer when I am gone! And oh, Stephen, I know you will cherish
our little one--yours and mine--when I am gone. She will have no
mother; you will have to be father and mother too.'
'I will hold her in my very heart's core, my darling, as I hold you!' He
could hardly speak from emotion. She went on:
'And oh, my dear, you will not grieve that she is not a son to carry on
your name?' And then a sudden light came into her eyes; and there was
exultation in her weak voice as she said:

'She is to be our only one; let her be indeed our son! Call her the name
we both love!' For answer he rose and laid his hand very, very tenderly
on the babe as he said:
'This dear one, my sweet wife, who will carry your soul in her breast,
will be my son; the only son I shall ever have. All my life long I shall,
please Almighty God, so love her--our little Stephen-- as you and I love
each other!'
She laid her hand on his so that it touched at once her husband and her
child. Then she raised the other weak arm, and placed it round his neck,
and their lips met. Her soul went out in this last kiss.
CHAPTER II
--THE HEART OF A CHILD

For some weeks after his wife's death Squire Norman was
overwhelmed with grief. He made a brave effort, however, to go
through the routine of his life; and succeeded so far that he preserved
an external appearance of bearing his loss with resignation. But within,
all was desolation.
Little Stephen had winning ways which sent deep roots into her father's
heart. The little bundle of nerves which the father took into his arms
must have realised with all its senses that, in all that it saw and heard
and touched, there was nothing but love and help and protection.
Gradually the trust was followed by expectation. If by some chance the
father was late in coming to the nursery the child would grow impatient
and cast persistent, longing glances at the door. When he came all was
joy.
Time went quickly by, and Norman was only recalled to its passing by
the growth of his child. Seedtime and harvest, the many comings of
nature's growth were such commonplaces to him, and had been for so
many years, that they made on him no impressions of comparison. But

his baby was one and one only. Any change in it was not only in itself a
new experience, but brought into juxtaposition what is with what was.
The changes that began to mark the divergence of sex were positive
shocks to him, for they were unexpected. In the very dawn of babyhood
dress had no special import; to his masculine eyes sex was lost in youth.
But, little by little, came the tiny changes which convention has
established. And with each change came to Squire Norman the growing
realisation that his child was a woman. A tiny woman, it is true, and
requiring more care and protection and devotion than a bigger one; but
still a woman. The pretty little ways, the eager caresses, the graspings
and holdings of the childish hands, the little roguish smiles and
pantings and flirtings were all but repetitions in little of the dalliance of
long ago. The father, after all, reads in the same book in which the
lover found his knowledge.
At first there was through all his love for his child a certain resentment
of her sex. His old hope of a son had been rooted too deeply to give
way easily. But when the conviction came, and with it the habit of its
acknowledgment, there came also a certain resignation, which is the
halting-place for satisfaction. But he never, not then nor afterwards,
quite lost the old belief that Stephen was indeed a son. Could there ever
have been a doubt, the remembrance of his wife's eyes and of her faint
voice, of her hope and her faith, as she placed her baby in his arms
would have refused it a resting-place. This belief tinged all his after-life
and moulded his policy with regard to his girl's upbringing. If she was
to be indeed his