It was all very well, they said, for the cobbler and his Maggie to
pose as rescuers and benefactors: but whose was the child? His growth
nevertheless went on all the same, and however such hints might seem to
concern him, happily they never reached him. Maggie flattered herself,
indeed, that never in this world would they reach him, but would die away
in the void, or like a fallen wave against the heedless shore! And yet,
all the time, in the not so distant city, a loving woman was weeping and
pining for lack of him, whose conduct, in the eyes of the Robertsons, was
not merely blameless, but sweetly and manifestly true, constantly yielding
fuel to the love that encompassed her. But, although mentally and
spiritually she was growing rapidly, she seemed to have lost all hope. For,
deeper in her soul, and nearer the root of her misery than even the loss
of her child, lay the character and conduct of the man to whom her love
seemed inextinguishable. His apostasy from her, his neglect of her, and
her constantly gnawing sense of pollution, burned at the bands of her
life; and her friends soon began to fear that she was on the verge of a
slow downward slide, upon which there is seldom any turning.
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