One day, as his wife was doing some little thing for him, he took
her hand in his feeble grasp, and pressing it to his face, wet
with the tears of reviving manhood, said:
"We might have been happy together, Letty, if I had but known how
much you were worth, and how little I was worth myself!--Oh me!
oh me!"
He burst into an incontrollable wail that tortured Letty with its
likeness to the crying of her baby.
"Tom! my own darling Tom!" she cried, "when you speak as if I
belonged to you, it makes me as happy as a queen. When you are
better, you will be happy, too, dear. Mary says you will."
"O Letty!" he sobbed--"the baby!"
"The baby's all right, Mary says; and, some day, she says, he
will run into your arms, and know you for his father."
"And I shall be ashamed to look at him!" said Tom.
An hour or so after, he woke from a short sleep, and his eyes
sought Letty's watching face.
"I have seen baby," he said, "and he has forgiven me. I dare say
it was only a dream," he added, "but somehow it makes me happier.
At least, I know how the thing might be."
"It was true, whether it was but a dream or something more," said
Mary, who happened to be by.
"Thank you, Mary," he returned. "You and Letty have saved me from
what I dare not think of! I could die happy now--if it weren't
for one thing."
"What is that?" asked Mary.
"I am ashamed to say," he replied, "but I ought to say it and
bear the shame, for the man who does shamefully ought to be
ashamed.
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