He had grown into a dark, ruddy, handsome little lad, this son of mine, with a brain and body far beyond his years, thanks to Ann's marvelous gift of motherhood, her care and her teaching.
Ann sat by the old, square piano singing some marvelous mother's lullaby of the Norseland, her full contralto ringing with splendid tenderness. Mother and son were alone when I entered. Carl was busily at play on a rug by the fire.
In that instant, with the plaint of the Norse mother in my ears, I knew. The tie was too strong to fight. I loved my little son--I loved his mother.
I do not remember how I stumbled across the room and told her. I only know that she was greatly shocked and troubled and very kind, that she told me as gently as she could that I must try to conquer it all--that there must be no one in Carl's life but herself--that man's part in the scheme of creation was but the act of a moment; a woman's part, her whole life.
I think now that her great love for the little chap had crowded everything else out of her mind; that living up there in those snowy acres of trees away from the world, she was so calmly contented and happy that she feared an intrusive breath of any sort. And she did not love me.
Suddenly in a moment of impulsive tenderness, she bent over and caught Carl up in her arms.
"My little laddie!" she cried, her face glorified, and he nestled his head in her full, beautiful throat and laughed.
An instant later he looked up and smiled and held out his hand with a curious instinct of kindliness he had, even as a very little fellow.
"Don't feel so awful bad, Uncle Grant!" he said shyly. "I love you too. Don't I, mother?" I don't know, but I think Ann cried.
I choked and stumbled from the room.
So, for me, ended the singular episode of my life that has condemned me again to the fate of a wanderer, drifting about like thistledown in the wind of fancy.
There is but one chance in many hundred that this paper, which bears upon the back the address of solicitors who will always know my whereabouts--sealed and buried after a whim of mine as it will be--will ever come to the eyes of him for whom it is intended, but maddened by the thought that I must go through life alone--and lonely--without hinting to my son the truth, I have desperately begged from Ann the boon of the single chance, forlorn as it is, that I may have some flickering hope to feed upon. And she, out of the compassionate recognition that for the single moment of creation I am entitled to this at least, has granted it. If this paper ever comes to the eyes of my son--and I am irrevocably pledged to drop no hint of its whereabouts--then--and not until then--are all my pledges void.