The secret remorse
that rankled in his bosom caused him to see all the world
blood-shot. He had not visited his mother-in-law since the evening
he had given her liberty to use her own discretion as to how
Isabella and her child should be disposed of. He feared even to go
near the house, for he did not wish to see his child. Gertrude
felt this every time he declined accompanying her to her mother's.
Possessed of a tender and confiding heart, entirely unlike her
mother, she sympathized deeply with her husband. She well knew
that all young men in the South, to a greater or less extent,
became enamored of the slave-women, and she fancied that his case
was only one of the many, and if he had now forsaken all others
for her she did not wish for him to be punished; but she dared not
let her mother know that such were her feelings. Again and again
had she noticed the great resemblance between Clotelle and Henry,
and she wished the child in better hands than those of her cruel
mother.
At last Gertrude determined to mention the matter to her husband.
Consequently, the next morning, when they were seated on the back
piazza, and the sun was pouring its splendid rays upon everything
around, changing the red tints on the lofty hills in the distance
into streaks of purest gold, and nature seeming by her smiles to
favor the object, she said,--
"What, dear Henry, do you intend to do with Clotelle?"
A paleness that overspread his countenance, the tears that trickled
down his cheeks, the deep emotion that was visible in his face,
and the trembling of his voice, showed at once that she had
touched a tender chord.
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