"He has been the bête noire of my ill-starred life, but even his malice has been satiated at last. Anxious to shield you from the possibility of danger, and from all contaminating influences and association, I carried you to a distant convent; the same with which grandmother had threatened me, and placed you under the sacred shadow of the Nuns' protection. Then, assured of your safety and that your education would not be neglected, I devoted myself completely to my profession. From city to city I wandered in quest of fame and money, both so essential to the accomplishment of my scheme; a scheme that goaded me sleeping and waking, leaving no moment of repose.
"One night in Chicago, having overtaxed my strength, I fainted on the street, en route from the theatre, and while my servant fled for assistance, I was found by Mr. and Mrs. Waul, and taken to their home. Their kind hearts warmed toward me, and no parents could have been more tenderly watchful than they have proved ever since. They supplied a need of protection, of which I was growing painfully conscious, and I engaged them to travel with me.
"Once I took three days out of my busy life, and visited the old family homestead of General Laurance. The owner was in Europe, the house closed; but, standing unnoticed under the venerable oaks that formed the avenue of approach to the ancestral halls of my husband, I looked at the stately pile and the broad fields that surrounded it, and called upon Heaven to spare me long enough to see my child the regnant heiress of all that proud domain. There I vowed that cost what it might, I would accomplish my revenge, would place you there as owner of that noble inheritance.
"Through Mr. Palma's inquiries concerning the records, I ascertained that this property had been settled upon Cuthbert on the week of his second marriage. You were ten years old when I determined to go to Europe and consummate my plan. Peleg had disappeared, and I knew that the other agent of the Laurances had lost all trace of me. You were so grieved because I left for Europe without bidding you good-bye! Ah, my sweet child! You never knew that it was the hardest trial of my life to put the ocean between us, and that I was too cowardly to witness your distress at the separation that was so uncertain in duration.
"Could I have gone without the sight of my precious baby? I reached the convent about dusk, and informed the sisters that I deemed it best to transfer you to the guardianship of two gentlemen, one of whom would come and take you away the ensuing week. Through a crevice of the dormitory door I watched you undress, envied the gentle nun who gathered up your long hair and tied over it the little white ruffled muslin cap; and when you knelt by your small curtained bed, and repeated your evening prayers, adding a special petition that 'Heavenly Father would bless dear mother, and keep her safe,' I stifled my sobs in my handkerchief. When you were asleep I crept in on tiptoe, and while Sister Angela held the lamp, I drew aside the curtain and looked at you. How the sweet face of my baby stirred all the tenderness that was left in my embittered nature! As you slumbered, you threw your feet outside the cover, and murmured in your musical childish babble something indistinct about 'mother, and our Blessed Lady.'
"My heart yearned over you, but I could not bear the thought of hearing your peculiarly plaintive wailing cry, which always pierced my soul so painfully, and I softly kissed your feet and hurried away. Come, put your arms around my neck, and kiss me, my lovely fatherless child!"
For some seconds Mrs. Orme held her in a warm embrace. "There sit down. Little remains to be told, but how bitter! Here in Paris, while playing 'Amy Robsart,' I saw once more, after the lapse of thirteen years, the man who had so contemptuously repudiated me. Regina, if ever you are so unfortunate, so deluded, as to deeply and sincerely love any man, and live to know that you are forgotten, that another woman wears the name and receives the caresses that once made heaven in your heart, then, and only then, can you realize what I suffered, while looking at Cuthbert, with that other creature at his side, acknowledged his wife! I thought I had petrified, had ceased to feel aught but loathing and hate, but ah! the agony of that intolerable, that maddening sight! Ask God for a shroud and coffin, rather than endure what I suffered that night!"
She was too much engrossed by her mournful retrospective task, to observe the deadly pallor that overspread Regina's face, as the girl rested her head on the arm of the sofa and passed her fingers across her eyes, striving to veil the image of one beyond the broad Atlantic's sweep and roar.
"At last I began to taste the sweet poison of my revenge. Cuthbert did not suspect my identity, but he was strangely fascinated by my face and acting. Openly indifferent to the woman with whom his father had linked him, and provided with no conscientious scruples, he audaciously expressed his admiration, and contrived an interview to commence his advances. He avowed sentiments disloyal to the heiress who wore his name and jewels, and insulting to me had I been what he supposed me, merely Odille Orme a pretty actress. I repulsed and derided him, forbidding him my presence; and none can appreciate the exquisite delight it afforded me to humiliate and torture him. When it was a crime in the sight of man, he really began to love the woman, who—in God's sight—was his own lawful wife; and his punishment was slowly approaching.
"My health gave way under the unnatural pressure of acting evening after evening, with his handsome magnetic face watching every feature, every inflection of my voice. I was ordered to rest in Italy, and when I learned I should there meet General Laurance, I consented to go. Before leaving Paris, I saw the only child of that hideous iniquitous sham marriage; and, darling, when I contrasted you, my own pure pearl, with the deformed, dwarfish, repulsive daughter, whom the Nemesis of my wrongs gave to Cuthbert, in little Maud Laurance, I almost shouted aloud in my great exultation. You so beautiful, with his own lineaments in every feature, disowned for that misshapen, imbecile heiress of his proud name. Oh, mills of the Gods! how delicious the slow music of their grinding!