After cheering, again and again, the now calmed woman, Mary hastily quitted, on her search for positive information. This had to be guardedly done, but she thought it might be accomplished through the medium of the waiting-woman of Lady Dora. Accordingly, she hurried home, and, selecting some articles of lingèrie, carried them to the Hotel Mirabeau, under pretence that some one had ordered her to bring patterns for selection, for the approval of Lady Dora Vaughan.
It will be remembered that her person, her present position, both were equally unknown to this lady, who alone knew her by name. Her success was greater than she had at first ventured to hope. Lingères and ladies'-maids soon open a conversation together, especially as Mary, having so much at stake, threw off all her usual reserve, and became a perfect Parisienne in manner. She came, she said, having heard Milady Vaughan was making up a trousseau, in hopes some of her lingèrie might be worthy of a place in it—taking care, however, to give a wrong name and address. After the usual preliminary of presenting the attendant with a handsome collar, to propitiate her good-will, she learned, with a tremor at first, which ended in amazement and joy, that Lady Dora was going very shortly to be married, but positively to Milord Randolph Gray, who was then in Paris; and the soubrette, warmed by the handsome present she had received, threw off all reserve, and spoke in raptures—true Parisian raptures—of her lady's beauty, and the justice it was meeting at the hands of a celebrated painter, a Monsieur Tremenhere, who was pourtraying her as Diana, to please Milord Randolph.
Mary could scarcely contain herself in the bounds of moderation, at this, to her, delightful intelligence; she abridged the visit as much as possible, promising to call again in a few days with more patterns, as Lady Dora was then out. She flew almost to poor Minnie's abode, to whom every moment had been as days. When Mary entered the room, her eyes were wild and excited; one glance, however, sufficed. Minnie read so much real joy in the other's kind face, that she fell back on her pillow almost fainting, from her previously overwrought feelings.
"Cheer up, madam—dear madam, I bring you joyful news!" exclaimed the other; and she hurriedly related all she had heard.
Minnie could not utter a word for many moments; then, as memory of those words crossed her mind, she could but torture herself with a solution of them, by supposing that Lady Dora's pride had stood between them. Not all Mary could urge against it, could banish the idea; and all she could do was to promise secresy, and employ means to discover the truth. She left, but only to make some necessary arrangements, and then return. One thing she resolved upon doing, and this she put into immediate practice—namely, to write to Mr. Skaife without hinting a word of the truth, but implored him to lose not a day in coming to Paris, asking secresy to all on the subject of her request—a hint of Minnie she durst not give; she only spoke of the absolute necessity there existed for his immediate arrival. This done, she felt at ease; and returning to Minnie's, after providing many little comforts until then unknown there, she took up her abode beside that sick-bed, and watched with delight the change a few hours had made in that sick woman, whose mind diseased had defied all medicine. Our good deeds, not unfrequently even in this world, bring home their ripe fruits! Here was the girl whom she had taken from error to her bosom, from poverty to be almost her friend, now in this extreme moment, soothing, consoling, and returning to her all she had herself given her; and Mary's eye filled with honest joy as she felt this. Could she have laid down her life she would freely have done it, to prove all her gratitude. It was, in truth, a day when Minnie was made to feel that our good gifts often return tenfold to us. She did not in her peace forget him, who had watched over her in sickness and delirium. She had explained to Mary all she knew of Monsieur Georges; and, as the shades of evening were closing in, Minnie heard the stealthy step plodding up and down his solitary room. He feared to intrude now, knowing she had a friend to watch and guard her.
"Oh!" cried she, "I have forgotten poor Monsieur Georges in all my selfish happiness. Mary, open that door, and say I would speak with him—will you? He has been indeed both father and friend to me!" Mary rose hastily to obey, and re-entered, almost dragging in the poor, solitary old man, from his own cold, comfortless chamber; for he was poorer than ever, having spent every sou he could command on the sick woman who had befriended him.
"Come in—pray, come in!" cried Minnie, stretching out a hand to him. "Come, and see how much better I am to-night; and your little boy, too, see how calmly he is sleeping beside me. You must not forget him; he has more than once slept in your arms when mine were powerless to retain him."
Georges stooped over the bed, and a tear fell on her cheek, as the shivering man pressed his lips to her forehead.
"My child," he said, "I never can forget you or him; you seem as something belonging to me, and yet I must lose you soon. I know you will recover, and go among friends. I felt from the first, your being as you were must have a cruel mystery attached to it—all will clear away for you, you are so good, and then you will go, and I shall remain!" and the desolate old man's voice trembled.
"I will never forsake you!" exclaimed Minnie. "I could not; you have been with me in too much sorrow, for me ever to forget you! The friends of those hours we may not banish, like the ones who pass with our laughter."