the beauty of the child's coloring. "I suppose that it is quite natural that he should be so fair," she said, contemplatively; "being three-fourths white, you know."
Dick winced. "He is a very beautiful boy." he said, gravely.
Her arms tightened about the little one. "Yes," she said; "he is beautiful." And then, still gazing down at the child, she shook her head slowly. "Oh," she said, "if David had only waited! He is so beautiful—if he had only waited, perhaps—"
A wave of hot jealousy surged up over the man. "But he couldn't have waited!" he blurted out almost savagely. "No man with a spark of red blood in him could have waited—in the face of anything like that!"
The girl turned her face to him and her eyes were soft with tears; "But he didn't give me a chance!" she cried, brokenly; "He never let me tell him. He gave me no chance to confess. He judged me—"
"It was too late then for a confession," said Dick, grimly.
"But," said the girl, trying to swallow her tears; "if he had only known—if he had let me tell him how my love maddened me—"
"No man," interrupted Dick, bitterly, with a queer feeling that it was his own case that he was defending, not that of the dead man; "—no man is ever made lenient by being told how much his wife
