And now she was free, and in the possession of great wealth. But she was alone, without a tie in the world. All her bright dreams had faded. She had indulged the hope that her child still lived, and as she traveled back to England had raised up mental pictures of her daughter which filled her with joy. The information she received from Dr. Spenlove had killed that hope, and her yearning desire was to visit the grave of the babe she had deserted, and to weep over it tears of bitter repentance.
It was not so much now to reclaim the iron box containing the clew to a shameful episode in her youthful life as to learn where her babe was buried, that she wished to learn into whose care her child had been given. There was a time when she nursed a fierce desire for revenge upon the man who had betrayed her, but this desire had burned itself away, and she would be content that the melancholy memories of the past should be buried in oblivion. No good result would accrue from rekindling the smoldering ashes of an experience so sad. She had lived down the shame; no word of reproach had been uttered against her; let the dead past bury its dead.
For a few moments there was silence between her and Aaron, and she was the first to speak.
"Dr. Spenlove has told me all," she said.
"He has told you what he knows," said Aaron, "but you have something more to hear. It was I who undertook the charge of your child. Mr. Moss brought her to me in Gosport, and delivered to me also the box which you intrusted to Dr. Spenlove. I hand you now the box in the same condition as it was handed to me. You will oblige me by convincing yourself that it has not been tampered with."
She unlocked the box with a key she carried in her purse, and taking from it the half of the letter she had deposited therein, glanced over it with a bitter smile, then replaced it in its hiding place and relocked the box.
"There was nothing else in it?" asked Aaron.
"Nothing else," she replied; "it is as I delivered it to Dr. Spenlove. Tell me about my child. Did she live long? Was she buried in Gosport? You will tell me the truth--you will conceal nothing from me?"
"I will tell you the truth; I will conceal nothing from you; but what I have to say must be said in my own way. When Mr. Moss left your child with me there were two babes in my house of the same age, and we were in deep poverty and distress. My wife--my beloved wife lay at the point of death----" He covered his eyes with his hands. "Bear with me; these recollections overcome me." Presently he resumed. "But a short time before her confinement she had been stricken with blindness. Her own child, whose face she had never seen, lay quiet and still in her arms. The doctor who attended her feared the worst, and said her life depended upon the life of her babe. If our child died on the morrow the mother would die; if our child lived the mother would live. How can I expect you to forgive me for what I did in the agony of my heart?"
Again he paused, and tears gushed from his eyes. Mrs. Gordon sank back in her chair; there was not a vestige of color in her face.