"Here, my man, take this," he said, putting the coins into the man's
hand.
"Why, this is too much, sir," said the honest fisherman, holding his
hand out and looking at the gold in surprise. "You will rob yourself,
sir."
"No, no; keep it. It is but a trifle," said Howard, pushing his hand
back. "But, pray, will you answer a few questions for me?"
"As many as you like, sir--and thank you for your generosity," answered
the fisherman, politely.
"I am very much interested in the sad story written here," said Howard,
glancing at the paper which he still held in his hand.
"Yes, sir, it is very sad," assented the fisherman.
"How came this unknown sick woman at the Widow Videlet's house?"
inquired Howard.
"The poor soul came there a few days ago, sir. She was ill and quite out
of her head--could give no account of herself."
"Can you tell me what day she came there?"
"This makes the fourth day since she came, sir. I remember it was the
same day you were brought to the hotel."
The young man started. It was the same day that Lora Carroll had
disappeared.
Could it be Lora? Had it been some other waif the great sea had cast up
from its deep?
"Did you see this woman? Could you describe her to me?" asked Howard,
eagerly.
"I saw her the day she came wandering into Dame Videlet's cottage," was
the answer.
"You can tell me how she looked then," said Howard, restraining his
impatience by a great effort.
"Yes, sir. She was a mere girl in appearance--very young and very
beautiful, with black eyes and long, black hair. She was thinly clad in
a fine night-dress," answered the fisherman.
"Did you say she was out of her mind?" asked Howard.
"Yes, sir; she raved continually."
"What form did her delirium take?"
"Oh, sir," cried the fisherman, in a tone of pity and sympathy for the
wretched unknown, "it seemed like she had lost her baby. She was going
around from one to the other in the place asking, asking everyone, for
her baby. She said she was so tired and she had lost it out of her arms
in the rain and the darkness, and could not find it again."
Howard's heart gave a great, tumultuous bound of surprise, then almost
stopped beating with the suddenness of the shock.
It all rushed over him with the suddenness of a revelation.
It had seemed so strange to him that Mrs. St. John should have taken the
tender little babe with her in the rain and wind when she went to search
for Lora.
The truth flashed over him like lightning now.
Xenie had found the babe upon the sand where Lora had dropped it in her
fevered flight.
No wonder she had been so angry and defiant when he had questioned her
about it.
He felt sure now, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the unknown sick
woman in the poor widow's cottage could be none other than Lora herself.
"Poor, unhappy creature," he thought, with a thrill of commiseration.
"It must be that God himself has sent me here to succor and befriend
her."
He rose hurriedly and took up his crutch.
"How far is Dame Videlet's cottage from here?" he inquired.
"But a few rods, sir--a little further on toward the beach," said the
fisherman, regarding him in some surprise.
"I will go down there and see that unfortunate woman, if you will guide
me," said Howard. "I believe that she is a friend of mine. You may
return their pence to those poor fishermen, who can ill spare it,
perhaps. I will charge myself with her expenses even if she should not
prove to be the person I think she is."
The fisherman looked at him admiringly and hastened to do his bidding.
Then they walked along to the widow's cottage very slowly, for Howard
found himself exceedingly awkward in the use of his crutch.
But after all it seemed but a very few minutes before they stood in the
one poor little room of Dame Videlet's dilapidated cot bowing to the
kind old soul who had taken the poor wayfarer in beneath the shelter of
her lowly roof, shared her simple crust with her, and tended her with
kindly, Christian hands.
"How is your patient to-day, my kind woman?" inquired the young man.
"Ah, sir, ah, sir, you may even see for yourself," she answered sadly,
as she turned toward the bed.
Howard went forward with a quickened heart-beat, and stood by her side
looking down at the sufferer.
Yes there she lay--poor little Lora--with wide, unrecognizing, black
eyes, with cheeks crimson with fever and parted lips through which the
breath came pantingly. A heavy sigh broke unconsciously from Howard's
lips.
"Good sir, do you know her?" asked the woman, regarding him anxiously.
"Yes, I know her," he answered; "she is a friend of mine and has
wandered away from her home in the delirium of fever. You shall be
richly rewarded for your noble care of her."
"I ask no reward but the blessing of Heaven, sir," said the good old
woman, piously; "I have done the best I could for her ever since she
staggered into the door and asked me for her lost baby."
As if the word struck some sensitive chord in her consciousness, Lora
turned her wild, bright eyes upon Howard's face, and murmured in a
pathetic whisper:
"Have you found my baby--Jack's baby and mine?"
Alas for Xenie's secret, guarded with such patient care and sleepless
vigilance.
Howard looked down upon her with a mist of tears before his sight--she
looked so fair, and young, and sorrowful, lying there calling for her
lost little child.
"I have lost my baby, I have lost my baby!" she wailed aloud, throwing
her arms wildly over her head and tangling her fingers in the long, dark
tresses floating over the pillow in their beautiful luxuriance. "It is
lost, lost, lost, my darling little one! It will perish in the rain and
the cold!"
Involuntarily Howard reached out and took one of the restless white
hands in his, and held it in a firm and tender clasp.
"Lora, Lora," he said, in a gentle, persuasive voice, "listen to me. The
baby is _found_. Xenie found it on the shore where you lost it out of
your arms. It is safe--it is well, with Xenie."
Lora turned her hollow glance upon his face, and though no gleam of
recognition shone in her eyes, his impressive words penetrated her soul.
She threw out her arms yearningly.
"It is found, it is found! Oh, thank God!" she murmured, happily. "Bring
him to me, for the love of Heaven! Lay him here upon my breast, my
precious little son!"
"Oh, sir, then it is true she had a child; and it is living. I thought
perhaps it was dead," said the poor widow.
"She has a child, indeed, and she lost it in her delirious flight; but
her sister found it soon afterward. It is at this moment not more than
four miles from here," answered the young man, without reflecting that
many things might have happened during his long imprisonment of four
days in the lonely little fishing village.
"Then, if you will take my advice, sir, as she is a friend of yours, you
will try to get that child here as soon as possible. I will do the best
I can for her, and the doctor has promised to do all in his power; but I
believe that the child is the only thing that will save her life," said
Dame Videlet, gravely shaking her head in its homely white cap.
"It shall be brought," said Howard, earnestly, and without a doubt but
that he could keep the promise thus made.
Dame Videlet thanked God aloud, then added that the sooner it were
brought the better it would be for the mother.
All the while poor Lora lay tossing in restless pain, and begging
piteously for her little child to be laid upon her breast.
Howard bent over her as tenderly and gently as a brother.
"Lora, my poor child, try to be patient," he said. "I will bring the
child to you; only be patient a little while."
But it was all in vain to preach patience to that racked heart and
weary, fevered brain.
He stole away, followed by despairing cries for the little child--cries
that echoed in his heart and brain many days afterward, when his warm
heart was half-broken because he could not keep the promise he had made
in such perfect confidence and hope.
"How shall I get back to the village four miles away from here?" he
asked of the man who had accompanied him and was still waiting for him.
"I can take you in my fishing-boat and row you there, and welcome, sir,"
was the hearty response. "It's a wee bit leaky, but as good as any other
craft about, and there's no conveyance to be had by land."
"What a great simpleton I have been, by George, never to have thought of
a boat before," said Howard, looking vexed at himself. "Here I have been
four days, and wanting to get back to the village badly, and never
thought of all the little boats and the great, wide ocean."
"Mayhap it's all for the best, sir," said the fisherman. "If you had
gone back sooner, you might never have found the sick lady, your friend.
You should see the hand of the Lord in it, my young sir."
"It looks like it," admitted Howard, "though, truth to tell, _mon ami_,
I do not usually look for such intervention in my affairs. His Satanic
Majesty is at present controlling my mundane affairs."
"The Lord rules, sir," answered the man, launching his little boat, and
trying to make a comfortable and dry seat for his crippled young
passenger.
The little boat shot out into the blue and sparkling waves, and danced
along like a thing of life in the beautiful spring sunshine.
"We must go a mile below the village to the home of my friend's mother,"
Howard explained, as they went along.
Then he fell to wondering how Xenie would receive him when he came to
her with the glad tidings of Lora's discovery.
"How strange that I should carry _her glad_ tidings," he thought. "I am
afraid I do not keep to the letter of my vow of hatred as firmly as she
does. Would _she_ bring me good news as willingly?"
His heart answered no.
The keel grated on the shore, and springing out, they went up to the
pretty cottage were Mrs. Carroll had lived in strict retirement for
several months with her two daughters.
But there a terrible disappointment awaited Howard.
The cottage was untenanted.
They knocked several times, eliciting no response, and finally opening
the doors, they found that the occupants had moved out.
All was still and silent, and Howard's heart sank heavily as he thought
of poor Lora lying in the widow's cot and moaning for the child he had
promised to bring her.
"They are gone away," said Howard in a more hopeless voice than he knew
himself. "We must return to the village. We may hear news from them
there."
And in his heart he was fervently praying that he would, for how could
he return to Lora without the child?
They went to the little village where the dead body had been washed upon
the sands, and he asked everyone he met if they knew where the occupants
of the little cottage had gone.
No one could tell him anything of their whereabouts. They had identified
the drowned woman as their relative, had buried her, and then quietly
left the place, taking Ninon, the little maid, with them.
He could not obtain the least clew by which he might follow them and
bring them back to the sick girl whom they mourned as dead.
Howard did not know what to do now, for he remembered that Dame Videlet
had said that the child was the only thing that could save Lora's life.
He went into the churchyard and looked at the new-made grave with the
cross of white marble, and the simple inscription "Lora, _ætat_ 18."
"Perhaps the inscription might come true after all in a few--a very few
days," he thought, sadly.