must be patient
and get stronger. There are reasons why she cannot come, or you cannot
go, and you must hear the rest of the story."

"Everett," began his sister, "how do you _know_ but that this is a
scheme to extort money. How can you be sure it is your child? There are
so many swindlers or blackmailers in the world."

He was arranging his wife on the couch, thankful she had borne the
tidings so well. Then he seated himself beside her, bending over to kiss
the pallid lips.

"There can scarcely be any chance for fraud. No one would profit by it,
and now, shall I go on with the story?"

They both acquiesced.

There was something so pathetic in the fostermother's love for the child
and her fear of its being cast on the world as no one seemed to know
anything about the supposed mother. Then her return to her early home;
her struggles against misfortune, poverty and ill health, and after a
little, her dismay at finding the child so different from what she had
been herself, so ambitious, so longing for refinement and showing such a
distaste for common ways. The failure of her own health, the
impossibility of keeping the girl at school any longer when Mrs.
Barrington's proffer had seemed a perfect godsend. But it was too late
to recover the health that had been so shattered by poverty and hard
work.

"Well, if it _is_ true she was a courageous woman," declared Miss
Crawford. "One can't forgive her for taking the child without making a
single inquiry."

"But everything was in such confusion, and you will remember that
Marguerite lay unconscious for a long while, just hovering between life
and death. And at that time, in the western countries there were not so
many safeguards. When Dr. Kendricks reached the place, Jane and the baby
had been temporarily buried. Yes, it was easy for the thing to happen
when Mrs. Boyd wanted the baby so much. I can hardly forgive her, but we
must admit that the confession showed an earnest desire to repair the
wrong."

"Where is she?"

"At Mrs. Barrington's. Dr. Kendricks thinks she can last but a few days
longer and the child is resolved to stay until the end. I tried to shake
her determination but found it useless."

"I admire her for it," said Mrs. Crawford.

"I should doubt her fervent love if it could be transferred so easily
from poverty to wealth. Yes, I am proud of my dear daughter whom I have
not seen in fifteen years. But the whole story is marvellous."

"And yet there