And then I saw that foot, and I knew that He hated me still. He had
burned His mark into my baby's flesh. And I was never to be quite happy
again, but always in fear, fear of pain--and death--and grief--"
She paused. Her large eyes gazed into vacancy, and her whole slight
frame showed the working of some mysterious and pitiful distress.
A wave of poignant alarm swept through Ashe's mind, coupled also with a
curious sense of something foreseen. He had never witnessed precisely
this mood in her before; but now that it was thus revealed, he was
suddenly aware "that something like it had been for long moving
obscurely below the surface of her life. He took the child and laid him
on the floor, where he rolled at ease, cooing to himself. Then he came
back to Kitty, and soothed her with extraordinary tenderness and skill.
Presently she looked at him, as though some obscure trouble of which she
had been the victim had released her, and she were herself again.
"Don't go away just yet," she said, in a voice which was still low and
shaken. He came close to her, again put his arms round her, and held her
on his breast in silence.
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