“She was almost crazy with her own grief. And she was good and tender and devoted to me. She shall not suffer for it in her dying moments.”
She stood there proudly, her face a-light with a sort of heroic devotion. So her mother would have taken up any wrong. Was he unduly bitter?
“Oh, my darling, have you no love for me? No want for your own sweet mother—”
Something in his pleading tone touched her and his face betrayed strong agitation. His arms seemed to hang listlessly by his side. She took a few steps toward him and then they suddenly clasped her in a vehement embrace.
The doctor glanced at Mrs. Barrington and they both left the room.
“It has been a hard fight,” he said. “He was so enraged at first that I was afraid he would come and have it out with the dying woman. The fact that she knew the child was not hers and yet took it away seemed to stir all the blood in his body. Poor thing—one has to feel sorry for her; but he raged over the privations he thought his child had endured, and her being here in an equivocal position. The Crawfords were always very proud. And one could not expect a girl just in the dawn of womanhood to fly to a stranger’s arms.”
“Yet it took her so by surprise, and she has a proud, reticent nature.”
“Let us go and see Mrs. Boyd.”
Major Crawford felt the girl’s heart beating against his own. He raised the face and kissed it, amid tears, deeply touched.
“You must forgive me. You do not know what it is to have some one stand between you and your child all these years. I used to dream how it would have been with twin girls running about, climbing one’s knees, doing a hundred sweet and tender things. Zay has been so lovely, so loving; but all these years we never forgot you. We gave the most fervent thanks for your mother’s recovery, and when you are safe in her arms—oh, it seems almost as if it was too much joy.”