CHAPTER XLIII.

The flames touched the portrait, and with a cry Eugene Mallard hastily drew it back.

"No, no—a thousand times no!" It would be as easy to burn the living, beating heart in his bosom.

While he had the strength, he hurried to his writing-desk, placed it in a pigeon-hole, shut down the lid, and turned the key. Then he buried his face in his hands.

He ruminated upon the strangeness of the position he was placed in. Both of these young girls loved him, while he loved but one of them, and the one whom he loved so deeply could never be anything in this world to him. He wondered in what way he had offended Heaven that such a fate should be meted out to him.

At that moment quite a thrilling scene was transpiring at the railway station of the little Virginia town.

The New York Express, which had just steamed in, stood before it, and from one of the drawing-room cars there stepped a handsome man dressed in the height of fashion.

He sauntered into the waiting-room, looking about him as though in search of the ticket-agent.

A woman entered the depot at that moment carrying a little child in her arms. She recognized the man at a single glance.

"Why, Mr. Royal Ainsley!" she cried, "is this indeed you returning to your old home?"

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Turning hastily around at the mention of his name, he beheld Mrs. Lester standing before him.

"Yes; I have returned like a bad penny, Mrs. Lester," he said, with a light, flippant laugh. "But, judging from the expression on your face, you are not glad to see me."

"I have not said so," she answered.

"Sit down, Mrs. Lester," he said, flinging himself down on one of the benches. "I should like to inquire of you about the women-folk of the village."

The woman sat down beside him, in obedience to his request.

"There is very little to tell," she answered; "everything in our village moves on about the same, year in and year out. Nothing of importance has taken place, except the marriage of your cousin, Eugene Mallard."

"Ha! ha! ha! So my fastidious cousin has changed his name from Royal Ainsley to that of Eugene Mallard to please his uncle, has he? Well, I read of it in one of the New York papers, but I scarcely credited it. Between you and me, Mrs. Lester, that was a mighty mean piece of work—the old fool leaving his entire fortune to him, and cutting me off without a cent."

"Every one knows that you were warned of what was to come unless you mended your ways," answered the woman.

"Bah! I never thought for a moment that the old fool would keep his word," retorted the other. "But you say that my cousin is wedded. That is indeed news to me. Whom did he wed—Vivian Deane?"

"Oh, no," she answered, "not Miss Deane. Every one in the village prophesied that he wouldn't wed her, although she was so infatuated with him."

"I suppose she is an heiress," said Ainsley, savagely knocking the ashes off his cigar. "It's easy enough to marry another fortune if you have one already."

"I don't know if she is an heiress," returned Mrs. Lester; "but she's a real lady. Any one can see that. But I fear that he is in great danger of losing her. She is[184] now very low with brain fever, and it is doubtful whether she will live."

"Humph!" he muttered. "My visit here is most inopportune then. I wanted to see my cousin, and strike him for the loan of a few thousand dollars. He won't be in very good humor now to accede to my request. I think I'll keep shady and wait a fortnight before seeing him. But who is this?" he cried, looking at the child she carried in her arms. "I understood that your baby died."

"So it did," replied Mrs. Lester. "This is the little foundling whom we are about to adopt. My husband brought it to me from a foundling asylum."

"Well, I do declare!" said Ainsley. "That's quite a risky operation, taking a little waif into your home, when you don't know its parents."

"But I do know its mother," she answered. "I wrote and found out all about its mother. She was a young girl who was taken ill in the streets. A poor family permitted her to be brought into their house, and there her babe was born. The young mother was so ill that the babe was taken to the foundling asylum by the doctor who attended her, where it could have constant attention, for its little life was despaired of. By a strange mistake, word was sent to the mother that the little one had died. But the baby rallied and recovered. Almost heart-broken over the news of its death, the young mother disappeared. There was no one so interested as to make search for her, and tell her that her little one had been spared. In her flight she left behind her a package which contained some articles that may lead to her identity, if the child should ever want to find her hapless mother when she grows to womanhood. I have them with me now. Do let me show them to you, Mr. Ainsley."

At that moment the little one, who had been sleeping, slowly opened its great, dark, solemn eyes, looked up into the face of Royal Ainsley, and uttered a plaintive little sob.

It was not often that he noticed little children—indeed, he had an aversion to them—but he could not understand[185] the impulse that made him bend forward and look with interest into the flower-like little face.

Where had he seen just such a face? The great, dark, solemn eyes, so like purple pansies, held him spell-bound.

An impulse which he could not control or define caused him to reach out his trembling hand and touch the waxen little fingers, and the contact made the blood rush through his veins like fire. He tried to speak, but his tongue seemed too thick and heavy to perform its functions.

The woman did not notice his agitation. She was busily engaged in unwrapping a small parcel which she had tied up in oil silk.

Then, to his astonished gaze, Mrs. Lester held up before him a beautiful bracelet made of tiny pink sea-shells, with a heavy gold clasp, upon which was engraved, "From R. to I."

If Mrs. Lester had but looked at him, she would have seen that his face had grown ghastly.

At a glance he recognized the bracelet as one which he had designed and presented to Ida May, at Newport, when he believed her to be the heiress of the wealthy Mays.

"That is not all," said Mrs. Lester, holding up a man's pocket-book, which he recognized as his own—-the identical one he had sent up to Ida May by the porter, with a little change in it, on the morning he deserted her.

Again he opened his mouth to speak; but no sound issued from his lips. The pocket-book contained only a part of a sleeve-link that had belonged to himself, the other part of the link was in his pocket at that moment.

In a flash, the truth came to him—this little one was Ida May's child.

He now recalled the appealing letters she had written to him at the hotel after he had deserted her. He had never answered them, for by that time he was trying to win the beautiful heiress, Florence St. John. He had told Ida May that his marriage to her was not legal, while in truth it was as binding as Church and State could make it.

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He had cast all upon the throw of a dice, and it would never do for the poor young girl whom he had married to come between him and the young girl whom he was about to win.

He had resolved upon a desperate scheme to gain a fortune, by deluding the young girl whom he had made his wife into believing that she was not such, and going through the ceremony with the heiress, Florence St. John.

But Fate had snatched the beautiful Florence St. John from his grasp just as he was about to wed her. Her brother came on the scene, and Royal Ainsley beat a hasty retreat, as he had commenced to inquire into his antecedents.

All these thoughts flashed through his brain in an instant. Then he realized that Mrs. Lester was speaking to him.

"A pretty baby, is she not?" said the woman, holding the infant toward him. "But we have decided not to keep her, after all. I am going to take the first train to New York, and return the baby to the foundling asylum, though Heaven knows I shall miss her sorely. We are too poor to keep her."

Royal Ainsley turned toward her with strange eagerness.

"What do you say if I take your charge off your hands?" he asked, huskily.

"You, Mr. Ainsley?" exclaimed the woman, amazed. "Why, what in the world could you, a young bachelor, do with a baby?"

"I will give you one hundred dollars to give me the child. Is it a bargain, Mrs. Lester? Speak quickly, before I change my mind!"