The two men entered the drawing room. Lilian clung to Mrs. Barrington, but that lady impelled her forward.
“This is your daughter, Major Crawford,” she said, “and this, my dear, is your own father.”
Lilian stood like a statue. It was as if she was turning to stone. Oh, he could not deny her. The clear cut features, the golden bronze hair, the proud figure that seemed to add dignity to the whole. So, her mother had stood, in girlhood.
“Oh, my child! my child! have you no word of gladness for me after these long years! The baby I never saw—my Marguerite.”
Was her tongue frozen and her lips stiff? Oh, what should she say? How could she welcome this stranger?
“And that cruel woman has stolen your love from us, as she stole your beautiful body. Oh, where is she? Let me see her!”
“You were to keep calm, Major,” exclaimed the doctor. “We have gone over all this, and the poor woman is dying. To upbraid her now would be nothing short of murder.”
The Major glanced wildly around. “Why think of our loss and sorrow. She knew the child was not hers. And she ran off like a thief in the night. Oh, I can’t forgive her.”
“Oh, you must,” cried the girl with the first gleam of emotion she had shown. “For she mistook the nurse for the mother. Everything must have been in confusion. She thought of me as a motherless baby, perhaps to be cast on charity——”
“But all these years! And poverty, when a lovely home awaited you; brothers and a sweet sister and such a mother! Oh, she ought to know and suffer for the crime.”