She bowed forward, her face in her hands, and sobbed bitterly. I could have cried, too, and why not? Quickly the thought came to me, “Don’t let your feelings run away with your sense, for you need all the sense you have got.” After she had recovered a little, I asked, “Do you remember where Mr. and Mrs. Strangway got you?” She thought a moment, and replied, “Not very clearly, all I remember, that there was a great big house, and a great number of girls, with nice white frocks; that a lady came one day, took me by the hand and led me away; that is all I recollect, and I suppose that this lady must have been Mrs. Strangway, for I was with her always afterward.” “So you remember the frocks; just like girls!” I couldn’t help saying. She smiled. It was that playful smile that I so well remembered, and which I was glad to see, even in her sad condition, and though my heart was breaking with sorrow and dread.
“But do you remember nothing about a little brother of yours?” I asked.
“Nothing but this,” she answered. “I remember a long, dusty road. One day the little boy, my brother, I think, went to climb a tree to get me a flower or some fruit, and a great big monkey up in the tree made faces and chattered at him, and when the little boy ran away from the tree the monkey chased him, and I was in a great fright for his sake. That is all I remember.”
How vividly I recalled that scene! How frightened I was as I saw that monster grinning at me, and how I ran with him after me, and another thing, that the little sister picked up a stick, and came to defend me, bravely shaking the stick at the vicious brute.
There was no more doubt, so I said, “I am your brother.” She sprang to her feet, exclaiming, “You my brother? You that little brother? Come in quickly!” For I had been standing outside. She threw her arms around my neck and kissed me. Why shouldn’t she? “You my brother? You my brother?” she repeated, as if it was impossible. “Yes, and you are my sister, my long lost sister!” I replied.
We sat for an hour or more. There was no fear of interruption, as no one came in the day time but an old woman servant, and she had gone to her home in the city, not to return until toward evening. There was no fear of that distinguished Christian gentleman, the Honorable Commissioner, coming, for his deeds were deeds of shame and darkness, for which he always chose the night. I thought this, but certainly did not say so.
She gave me an outline of her life, told how kind and loving her adopted parents were to her, how they left India and placed her in a school in France while they spent several years on the continent. They then took her to England, where they placed her in an excellent school, while they spent some years visiting relatives in America. Returning, they took a home in Scotland, often traveling, sight-seeing, mainly for her improvement, while she enjoyed all the luxuries she wished. Then the loss of property, the return to India, and the sudden death of those she loved, and who loved her as their own child, how she was then thrown upon the tender mercies of the world to earn her own living, of her going to the Shaws as a governess, and then she cried as if her heart would break. The pitiful story—ah, the pity of it—I knew that was yet to come. I sat in dread, cold with fear. “O, God, if this cup would only pass from me.”
She began again, with bated breath, how the commissioner came to her at the club grounds where she was with the children, how he met her as if by accident in the early morning when she was out with them, of his smiles and flatteries. That he told her of the death of his wife, and how lonely he was, to get her sympathy. Then of his asking her to marry him, and of her repeated refusals, of his persistency until she at length consented. Then he received promotion in a distant province. He promised that they would be married on the journey, and in his new home she would be his wife, so she went with him, but it was not convenient for him to stop on the way, for he had to be at his appointment on a certain date.
“So here I am,” she bitterly exclaimed. “He has promised a hundred times to marry me, and lied every time. What am I now? Not his wife, only his aurat, his woman.” She moaned.
It was the same old story, of lying, deceiving rakes to allure victims into their nets. I have often thought if there is no hell, one should be invented for such infernal villains. What shall I compare them to? I know of nothing but that they are incarnate devils, fiends in human shape. The tiger, the most ferocious of brutes, kills his prey, destroys them and puts an end to their suffering, but these human devils prolong the lives of their victims, by deception and lies, to gratify their damnable and insatiate lust. What were my feelings? I felt like cursing, and committing murder. I do not hesitate to say this, and before God too, who I think would not rebuke me.