Page:The Fate of Fenella (1892).djvu/69

 Frank, looking strangely excited, holding out a hand to Jacynth.

"Let me thank you. That was splendidly done. You saved the boy's life, and I am—I" he stammered and stopped, reddening.

"No thanks are needed. I could not tell but that it was my own little scamp of a nephew. Where is Grandison?" Jacynth frigidly answered, looking round. He had driven Fenella and the two boys out here, because she wished to avoid meeting her husband and his probable companion. And, lo! tricksome fate had drawn these two hither as by some irresistible attraction.

Lucille was meanwhile looking on with intense apprehension. The child—the child was the sole remaining link between this man and wife, but that one how strong! She must interfere rapidly.

Next moment she had dropped on her knees beside Ronny, who now stood leaning against his mother, and had tenderly lifted his hand.

"Poor infant—chéri! He is bleeding, see!"

And she softly wiped some trickling drops from a graze on the chubby, childish fist.

"How dare you? Leave my child alone!" blazed out Fenella, withdrawing as if from the touch of a reptile.

Lucille rose with an air of dignified humility, and looked full at Onslow, with surely a sudden moisture in her beautiful dark eyes.

"I have made a mistake, it is true. But I am