in her soft white muslins and laces, upon a couch. The baby was
beside her, upon her arm, where he had fallen asleep, at her

breast. The yellow nurse woman sat beside a window fanning
herself.

Madame Valmonde bent her portly figure over Desiree and kissed
her, holding her an instanttenderly in her arms. Then she turned

to the child.
"This is not the baby!" she exclaimed, in startled tones.

French was the language spoken at Valmonde in those days.
"I knew you would be astonished," laughed Desiree, "at the way

he has grown. The little cochon de lait! Look at his legs,
mamma, and his hands and fingernails,--real finger-nails. Zandrine

had to cut them this morning. Isn't it true, Zandrine?"
The woman bowed her turbaned head majestically, "Mais si, Madame."

"And the way he cries," went on Desiree, "is deafening.
Armand heard him the other day as far away as La Blanche's cabin."

Madame Valmonde had never removed her eyes from the child.
She lifted it and walked with it over to the window that was

lightest. She scanned the baby narrowly, then looked as
searchingly at Zandrine, whose face was turned to gaze across the

fields.
"Yes, the child has grown, has changed," said Madame Valmonde,

slowly, as she replaced it beside its mother. "What does Armand say?"
Desiree's face became suffused with a glow that was happiness itself.

"Oh, Armand is the proudest father in the parish, I believe,
chiefly because it is a boy, to bear his name; though he says

not,--that he would have loved a girl as well. But I know it isn't
true. I know he says that to please me. And mamma," she added,

drawing Madame Valmonde's head down to her, and speaking in a
whisper, "he hasn't punished one of them--not one of them--since

baby is born. Even Negrillon, who pretended to have burnt his leg
that he might rest from work--he only laughed, and said Negrillon

was a great scamp. oh, mamma, I'm so happy; it frightens me."
What Desiree said was true. Marriage, and later the birth of

his son had softened Armand Aubigny's imperious and exacting nature
greatly. This was what made the gentle Desiree so happy, for she

loved him desperately. When he frowned she trembled, but loved
him. When he smiled, she asked no greater blessing of God.

But Armand's dark, handsome face had not often been disfigured
by frowns since the day he fell in love with her.

When the baby was about three months old, Desiree awoke one
day to the conviction that there was something in the air menacing

her peace. It was at first too subtle to grasp. It had only been
a disquieting suggestion; an air of mystery among the blacks;

unexpected visits from far-off neighbors who could hardly account
for their coming. Then a strange, an awful change in her husband's

manner, which she dared not ask him to explain. When he spoke to
her, it was with averted eyes, from which the old love-light seemed

to have gone out. He absented himself from home; and when there,
avoided her presence and that of her child, without excuse. And

the very spirit of Satan seemed suddenly to take hold of him in his
dealings with the slaves. Desiree was miserable enough to die.

She sat in her room, one hot afternoon, in her peignoir,
listlessly drawing through her fingers the strands of her long,

silky brown hair that hung about her shoulders. The baby, half
naked, lay asleep upon her own great mahogany bed, that was like a

sumptuous throne, with its satin-lined half-canopy. One of La
Blanche's little quadroon boys--half naked too--stood fanning the

child slowly with a fan of peacock feathers. Desiree's eyes had
been fixed absently and sadly upon the baby, while she was striving

to penetrate the threatening mist that she felt closing about her.
She looked from her child to the boy who stood beside him, and back

again; over and over. "Ah!" It was a cry that she could not help;
which she was not conscious of having uttered. The blood turned

like ice in her veins, and a clammy moisture gathered upon her face.
She tried to speak to the little quadroon boy; but no sound

would come, at first. When he heard his name uttered, he looked
up, and his mistress was pointing to the door. He laid aside the

great, soft fan, and obediently stole away, over the polished
floor, on his bare tiptoes.

She stayed motionless, with gaze riveted upon her child, and
her face the picture of fright.

Presently her husband entered the room, and without noticing
her, went to a table and began to search among some papers which

covered it.
"Armand," she called to him, in a voice which must have

stabbed him, if he was human. But he did not notice. "Armand,"
she said again. Then she rose and tottered towards him. "Armand,"

she panted once more, clutching his arm, "look at our child. What
does it mean? tell me."

He coldly but gently loosened her fingers from about his arm
and thrust the hand away from him. "Tell me what it means!"

she cried despairingly.
"It means," he answered lightly, "that the child is not white;

it means that you are not white."
A quick conception of all that this accusation meant for her

nerved her with unwonted courage to deny it. "It is a lie; it is
not true, I am white! Look at my hair, it is brown; and my eyes

are gray, Armand, you know they are gray. And my skin is fair,"
seizing his wrist. "Look at my hand; whiter than yours, Armand,"

she laughed hysterically.
"As white as La Blanche's," he returned cruelly; and went away

leaving her alone with their child.
When she could hold a pen in her hand, she sent a despairing

letter to Madame Valmonde.
"My mother, they tell me I am not white. Armand has told me

I am not white. For God's sake tell them it is not true. You must
know it is not true. I shall die. I must die. I cannot be so

unhappy, and live."
The answer that came was brief:

"My own Desiree: Come home to Valmonde; back to your mother
who loves you. Come with your child."

When the letter reached Desiree she went with it to her
husband's study, and laid it open upon the desk before which he

sat. She was like a stone image: silent, white, motionless after
she placed it there.

In silence he ran his cold eyes over the written words.
He said nothing. "Shall I go, Armand?" she asked in tones sharp

with agonized suspense.
"Yes, go."

"Do you want me to go?"
"Yes, I want you to go."

He thought Almighty God had dealt cruelly and unjustly with
him; and felt, somehow, that he was paying Him back in kind when he

stabbed thus into his wife's soul. Moreover he no longer loved
her, because of the unconsciousinjury she had brought upon his

home and his name.
She turned away like one stunned by a blow, and walked slowly

towards the door, hoping he would call her back.
"Good-by, Armand," she moaned.

He did not answer her. That was his last blow at fate.
Desiree went in search of her child. Zandrine was pacing the

sombre gallery with it. She took the little one from the nurse's
arms with no word of explanation, and descending the steps, walked

away, under the live-oak branches.
It was an October afternoon; the sun was just sinking. Out in