Madame Barto did not expect any customers the next morning; it was so
still, so dark and lowering after the night’s storm, but at ten o’clock
the bell clanged loudly and she admitted a beautiful, richly dressed
woman who said excitedly:
“No, I do not wish my fortune told, but I will pay you well for any
information about a young girl who has been living with you--Jessie
Lyndon.”
“She ran away from me last night, the little vixen, and I did not
discover it till this morning,” the fortune teller answered sullenly.
“Do not speak unkindly of the dead. Jessie Lyndon was found dead in the
snow by one of my servants last night, and she is at my house awaiting
burial,” was the startling reply.
“Good heavens! Poor little thing!” ejaculated Madame Barto, with a
touch of sympathy.
“I have come,” continued the lady, with a quivering lip, “to get all
the information possible about this young girl’s antecedents.”
“’Tis little I can give you, ma’am, in truth. She only stayed with me a
day or so, but I can give you the address of Mrs. Ryan, the woman who
brought her to me, and ’tis likely she can tell you all you want to
know, though I don’t think she has any folks rich enough to bury her,
poor thing, and, of course, she has no claim on me,” added Madame Barto
apprehensively.
The caller gave her a haughty glance.
“I am not looking for any one to pay Jessie Lyndon’s burial expenses,
my good woman,” she said freezingly; “Mrs. Ryan’s address, please, and
take this for your trouble,” pressing a gold piece into the ready palm,
and sweeping out to her waiting car.
“Whew! What a highflyer, to be sure! And liberal, too! I wish I knew
her name! There, she’s dropped a dainty handkerchief! Here ’tis in the
corner--Dalrymple! The same woman Carey told me about. I see how it
all happened now. She got out of the window, poor little Jessie, for,
after all, she was a sweet, pretty girl, and went to Fifth Avenue to
find the man she believed dead! Then the blizzard caught and killed her
in sight of the house! I’m free to own I am sorry, for I wished her no
harm, only when my nephew told me about Mr. Laurier’s angry sweetheart,
I thought just as well to keep Jessie out of his way for her own good.
Well, well, Carey will be coming presently, and what a fit he will be
in when he learns she is dead, poor Jessie Lyndon!”
Mrs. Dalrymple drove straight to Mrs. Ryan’s house, and found the good
little woman at home busy with her needle. From her she learned enough
to convince her that the hapless girl was no other than her lost child.
She stayed and listened to the woman’s harrowing story, and the tears
fell in torrents when she learned all that Jessie, brave little Jessie,
so lovely and so ill-fated, had suffered from the ills of poverty,
while her mother would have given all her millions to find her lost
child, her sole heiress.
All her pride gave way before the humble little woman, who had been
kind to the orphan girl, and she confessed the truth that she was
Jessie’s mother, the woman from whom an angry, unforgiving husband had
stolen away her heart’s idol, her little child.
Mrs. Ryan could not look into that proud, noble face, and believe she
was the bad woman Mrs. Godfrey suspected. Her kind heart went out to
her in sympathy, and she said:
“It’s been hard lines on yees both, lady, but yees can make it up to
bonny Jessie now!”
“Did I not tell you? Alas, she is dead, my darling!” And at that moving
story Mrs. Ryan’s heart was almost broken.
“You will come and see her, will you not? She looks like an angel, so
fair, so pure, so peaceful!” the bereaved mother cried, on leaving, and
in her gratitude for the woman’s kindness to Jessie she pressed on her
a sum of money that seemed like riches itself to the toil-worn creature
whose heart had kept warm and human through all the trials of pinching
poverty.
Mrs. Dalrymple hastened home and found Frank and Cora together, the
latter having just returned from arranging to celebrate her marriage at
her cousin’s home, instead of here. She was complaining most bitterly
to her lover of her aunt’s injustice, but he said impatiently:
“Cora, pray do not harp on this subject any more unless you would have
me believe you heartless!”
Her eyes flashed with resentment, but before she could utter the angry
reply that trembled on her lips, Mrs. Dalrymple swept into the room,
and between broken sobs, told them of her cruel discovery of her
child’s identity when all too late to save her life.
“Last night when she stood talking to you so sadly I was dazed,
confused, by a subtle something in her voice, glance, and gestures that
recalled the past,” she said. “At last it struck me with staggering
force that she reminded me of my divorced husband, while at the same
time she bore a startling resemblance to my lost child. I was struck
dumb with emotion, and could not move! Then that terrible thing
happened. You know the rest--how Doctor Julian found on her breast the
family birthmark. To-day it was easy to find the links in the chain
that proved her my own, so long lost to me, and found, alas, only
in--death!”
The pale, beautiful face drooped upon her breast in pitiful despair
as she cried: “May God send his curse upon the man who made my life
desolate, and robbed me of my child, my only comfort!”
Frank Laurier’s handsome face was pale with emotion as he faltered:
“Mrs. Dalrymple, I dare not ask you to forgive me for my share in your
grief, it is beyond pardon. She did not forgive me, nor can you, I
know. I feel that the sight of me must be hateful to you, so I shall
trespass no longer on your hospitality. I leave to-day, but I pray you
to believe that my undying remorse will be my bitterest punishment.”
She could well believe it from his pallid face and dejected mien, but
she could not bring the word forgive to her trembling lips. When she
remembered the previous night and the shame and pain of her hapless
child that had hurried her cruelly out of life she felt like crying
out upon him in mad resentment for what he had done.
As for Cora, she was stunned into silence by the strange story she had
heard.
She dared no longer inveigh against her aunt’s injustice. She could
only bow to the inevitable. But fully determined not to risk the evil
omen of a postponed marriage, she withdrew to her cousin’s house that
day after forcing herself to utter some meaningless expressions of
sympathy to the relative she was deserting in her hour of sorrow.
“You must forgive me, but dear Frank is so averse to a postponement,”
she twittered, and Mrs. Dalrymple did not contradict her, though she
knew it was not the truth.
She had seen within the last few hours a subtle change pass over the
young man.
From being so passionately in love with beautiful Cora that he was
willfully blind to her glaring faults, a chill seemed to have passed
over him, making him temporarily cold to the fascinating blandishments
of his triumphant betrothed.
Mrs. Dalrymple read in his sudden reserve and indifference that he
would not be averse to a postponement out of sympathy with the house of
mourning, but nothing was further from Cora Ellyson’s selfish thoughts.
Mrs. Dalrymple also knew something that Cora did not guess.
When the beautiful, white casket had been borne into the house some
time ago and Jessie’s still form was laid in it, her golden head
pillowed on fragrant flowers after pressing so many thorns in life,
Frank Laurier had gone on his crutch to the room, and spent half an
hour alone with the beautiful dead.
The mother, who watched him, herself unseen, had seen in his deep-blue
eyes, as they rested on her darling’s face, that look that cannot be
mistaken, the dawning of a great and silent love.
Cora Ellyson’s rival dead was more dangerous to her peace than in life.
In her grave she would hold the best part of the heart that Cora
claimed as all her own.
The bereaved mother had seen him press reverent lips on the shining
mass of golden hair, had heard him murmur solemnly: “Jessie, darling,
can you hear me pray for your forgiveness?”