It was quite easy to
conjecture: Gino crumpling up suddenly before the intense
conviction of Harriet; being told, perhaps, to his face that
he was a villain; yielding his only son perhaps for money,
perhaps for nothing. "Poor Gino," he thought. "He's no
greater than I am, after all."
Then he thought of Miss Abbott, whose carriage must be
descending the darkness some mile or two below them, and his
easy self-accusation failed. She, too, had conviction; he
had felt its force; he would feel it again when she knew
this day's sombre and unexpected close.
"You have been pretty secret," he said; "you might tell
me a little now. What do we pay for him? All we've got?"
"Hush!" answered Harriet, and dandled the bundle
laboriously, like some bony prophetess--Judith, or Deborah,
or Jael. He had last seen the baby sprawling on the knees
of Miss Abbott, shining and naked, with twenty miles of view
behind him, and his father kneeling by his feet. And that
remembrance, together with Harriet, and the darkness, and
the poor idiot, and the silent rain, filled him with sorrow
and with the expectation of sorrow to come.
Monteriano had long disappeared, and he could see
nothing but the occasional wet stem of an olive, which their
lamp illumined as they passed it. They travelled quickly,
for this driver did not care how fast he went to the
station, and would dash down each incline and scuttle
perilously round the curves.
"Look here, Harriet," he said at last, "I feel bad; I
want to see the baby.
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