CHAPTER XLVI.

"He has certainly been carried on to New York," said Widow Jones. "There is nothing left but to get home and await results."

"I guess you're about right," said Samantha.

They left word at the railroad station to at once bring up any telegram that might come for them.

An hour after they arrived at Larchmont, every one[194] had heard of Mrs. Jones and the baby, and her experience with the handsome stranger.

When a fortnight passed, and the weeks lengthened into months, Mrs. Jones began to be a little skeptical.

"We will keep the baby until he does come for it, Samantha," she said.

Somehow the little waif with the great dark eyes and the little rose-bud mouth had crept into their hearts, and they could not turn it away.

Samantha did her share in looking after the baby; but it was a little hard, for she had a great deal to do waiting upon customers in the village bakery.

The mother and daughter made no further mention of the handsome stranger.

"If we had but asked him his name. I wanted you to, ma," declared Samantha. "But there's no use in crying now. We have the satisfaction of having a baby, anyhow," declared the girl, spiritedly.

"Yes," assented her mother, dubiously; "but it's quite a task to bring up other people's children."

Meanwhile, freed from the care of the child, Royal Ainsley walked through the train. It was just approaching the station, when, all unobserved, he swung from the back platform just as the express was moving out again.

A chuckle of delight broke from his lips.

"That was most cleverly managed. My compliments to Mrs. Jones, of Larchmont. She has been exceedingly useful to me."

He did not trouble himself as to what disposition they might make of the child.

The question that occurred to him was—"how am I to destroy the proofs I have concerning the child?"

But no answer came to him regarding this dilemma. He thrust them back into his pocket. He would have plenty of time to plan when he reached New York.

Suddenly the thought came to him, that he would be foolish to turn back from the course he had marked out for himself. Instead of returning, he would go back and see Eugene.

There was a friend of his living in the vicinity. He[195] would find him, and pass a week or two with him, then he would carry out his original scheme. He acted upon this thought.

It was the fishing season, and Royal Ainsley made a valuable addition to a party of young men already gathered at his friend's quarters. Five weeks elapsed before the party broke up.

"By this time Eugene's wife must have recovered from her illness," he said, grimly. "If I don't go and see him now, they will probably be getting ready to go off somewhere, and I will miss them."

Suiting the action to the word, Royal Ainsley took the train the next day and arrived at his native village at dusk.

He had taken the precaution to provide himself with a long top-coat and a slouch hat.

He avoided the depot and its waiting-room, lest he should meet some one who might recognize him.

He struck into a side-path, and a sharp walk of some fifteen minutes brought him in sight of the old mansion.

How dark and gloomy the night was! There was no moon, and not a star shone in the heavens.

A short cut across the fields brought him to a little brook. He looked down upon it in silence as it gurgled on sullenly over its rocky bed.

He looked back at the grand old mansion looming up in the distance. And as he looked, he clinched his hands, and the bitterness in his heart became more intense.

"But for Eugene, all that would be mine," he muttered. "He stepped between me and the fortune. When we were boys together, I realized that he would do it, and I hated him—hated him for his suave, winning ways and the love which every one showered on him. He was always lucky."

He turned and looked again at the great stone mansion, whose turrets were dimly outlined against the sky. And as he looked he saw a door on the rear porch open and a figure clad in a white, fleecy dress glide out upon the porch and walk slowly into the grounds.

[196]

"That is probably the bride," he muttered, with a harsh little laugh.

To his surprise, she crossed the lawn and made directly for the spot where he stood.

"I shall not be likely to get a good look at her unless the moon comes out," he thought.

He drew back into the shadow of the alders that skirted the brook. His bitter, vengeful thoughts were turned aside for a moment while watching the advancing figure.

"Why should my cousin have wealth, love, happiness, while I have to knock about here and there, getting my living as best I can, being always in hard luck and a mark for the arrows of relentless fate?" he soliloquized.

Nearer and nearer drew the slender, graceful figure.

Royal Ainsley was right. It was his cousin's wife.

She went on slowly over the greensward in the sweet night air, little dreaming what lay at the end of her path.

By the merest chance the hapless young wife had come across the letter that Miss Fernly had written to Eugene Mallard. It had fallen from his pocket when he was looking over some papers on the porch one day.

Passing by soon after, Ida saw the paper lying there, picked it up, and opened it. There, while the sun shone and the birds sung, she read it through, and the wonder was that she did not die then and there.