text:  "If I should not survive my approaching time " thought Mary often surveying for hours through her tears the heights of Lexley Hall and fancying she could discern human figures moving from window to window or from terrace to terrace; "if I should be fated never to behold this child already loved--this child which is to be so dear a blessing to us both--in my last hours my father would not surely refuse to give me his blessing; nor would Selina persist in her present cruel alienation