"Mr. Palma first suspected and traced the relationship, and it was from him that Uncle Orme learned of my existence, for it appears he believed me dead. Mr. Palma has long held all the tangled threads of my miserable history in his skilful hands, and to his prudent, patient care you and I shall owe our salvation. For years he has been to me the truest, wisest, kindest friend a deserted and helpless woman ever found."
Regina sank her head upon the chair, afraid that her radiant face might betray the joy his praises kindled; and while she walked, Mrs. Orme began her recital:
"My grandfather, Hubert Chesley, was from Alsace; my grandmother originally belonged to the French family of Ormes. They had two children, Orme the eldest, and Minetta, who while very young married a travelling musician from Switzerland, named Léon Merle. A year after she became his wife her father died, and the family resolved to emigrate to America. On the voyage, which was upon a crowded emigrant ship, I was born; and a few hours after my mother died. They buried her at sea, and would to God I too had been thrown into the waves, for then this tale of misery would never torture innocent ears. But children who have only a heritage of woe, and ought to die, fight for existence defying adversity, and thrive strangely; so I lucklessly survived.
"My first recollections are of a pauper quarter in a large city, where my father supported us scantily by teaching music. Subsequently we removed to several villages, and finally settled in one where were located a college for young gentlemen, and a seminary for girls. In the latter my father was employed as musical professor, and here we lived very comfortably until he died of congestion of the lungs. Uncle Orme at that time was in feeble health, and unable to contribute toward our maintenance, and soon after father's death he went out to California to the mining region. I was about ten years old when he left, and recollect him as a pale, thin, delicate man. In those days it cost a good deal of money to reach the gold mines, and this alone prevented him from taking us with him.
"We were very poor, but grandmother was foolishly, inconsistently proud, and though compelled to sew for our daily bread, she dressed me in a style incompatible with our poverty, and contrived to send me to school. Finally her eyes failed, and with destitution staring open-jawed upon us, she reluctantly consented to do the washing and mending for three college boys. She was well educated, and inordinately vain of her blood, and how this galling necessity humiliated her! We of course could employ no servant, and once when she was confined to her bed by inflammatory rheumatism, I was sent to the college to carry the clothes washed and ironed that week. It was the only time I was ever permitted to cross the campus, but it sufficed to wreck my life. On that luckless day I first met Cuthbert Laurance, then only nineteen, while I was not yet fifteen. Think of it, my darling; three years younger than you are now, and you a mere child still! While he paid me the money due, he looked at and talked to me. Oh, my daughter! my daughter! as I see you at this instant, with your violet eyes, watching me from under those slender, black arches, it seems the very same regular, aristocratic, beautiful face that met me that wretched afternoon, beneath the branching elms that shaded the campus! So courteous, so winning, so chivalric, so indescribably handsome did he present himself to my admiring eyes. I was young, pretty, an innocent, ignorant, foolish child, and I yielded to the fascination he exerted.
"Day by day the charm deepened, and he sought numerous opportunities of seeing me again; gave me books, brought me flowers, became the king of my waking thoughts, the god of my dreams. In a cottage near us lived a widow, Mrs. Peterson; whose only child Peleg, a rough overgrown lad, was a journeyman carpenter, and quite skilful in carving wooden figures. We had grown up together, and he seemed particularly fond of and kind to me, rendering me many little services which a stalwart man can perform for a delicate petted young creature such as I was then.
"As grandmother's infirmity increased, and her strict supervision relaxed, I met Cuthbert more frequently, but as yet without her knowledge; and gradually be won my childish heart completely. His father, General René Laurance, was a haughty wealthy planter residing in one of the Middle States, and Cuthbert was his only child, the pride of his heart and home. Those happy days seem a misty dream to me now, I have so utterly outgrown the faith that lent a glory to that early time. Cuthbert assured me of his affection, swore undying allegiance to me; and like many other silly, trusting, inexperienced, doomed young fools, I believed every syllable that he whispered in my ears.
"One Sabbath when grandmother supposed I was saying my prayers in the church, which I had left home to attend, I stole away to our trysting place in a neighbouring wood, that bordered a small stream. Oh, the bitter fruits of that filial disobedience! The accursed harvest that ripened for me, that it seems I shall never have done garnering! Clandestine interviews concealed, because I knew prohibition would follow discovery! I am a melancholy monument of the sin of deception; and that child who deliberately snatches the reins of control from the hands where God decrees them, and dares substitute her will and judgment for those of parents or guardians, drives inevitably on to ruin, and will live to curse her folly. That day Peleg was fishing, and surprised us at the moment when Cuthbert was bending down to kiss me. Having heard all that passed, he waited till evening, and finding me in the little garden attached to our house, he savagely upbraided me for preferring Cuthbert's society to his, claimed me as his, by right of devotion; and when I spurned him indignantly, and forbade him to speak to me in future, he became infuriated, rushed into the cottage, and disclosed all that he had discovered."
"I knew it! I felt assured you must always have loathed him!" exclaimed Regina, with kindling eyes; and catching her mother's dress as she passed beside her.
"Why, my darling?"