Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

“ Lionel’s daughter. The baby was delightful, but Sandra——! She was a dream child, she was beauty in its purest, most exquisite moment. Her pale face, her clear features, her cloud of fine-spun hair, the slender grace of her little limbs, were, Frances thought, like some child angel in an old painting, altogether spiritual. She sat down beside her, to think. It helped her to look down at that innocent and fragile loveliness, sublimation of her poor lover. She grew softer; at last began to weep a little.
Very much later, toward two in the morning, she went down to find Mr. Petersen. ”

“ Useless. He could imagine no other person in Minnie’s place. No one but Minnie looking after those children; anyone else would be an impostor, a fraud, intolerable.
“I don’t know,” he said, “I haven’t thought much about it yet.”
“I’d do my best for them,” Frances said, with something like entreaty in her voice.
“Perhaps,” said Mr. Petersen, “they may take away Sandra.”
And to his horror, a sob escaped him. He could not endure the idea of losing that beloved little girl; he fancied her gone, and his own poor baby more solitary than ever. ”

“ Bigamy is a crime. She is a bigamist. I’ve got to keep it quiet. We were married here; it’s in the register.... I cannot tell anyone she was not my wife. I’ll have to let it be thought that she deserted me—ran off with this—this chap we called her brother. ”