"You must give a little of it to mine, since Heaven has taken its own mother," he said, gently. "I am not going to try flu bribe you with money--money does not buy the love and care of good women like you--but I ask you, for the love you bore to your own child, to be kind to mine. Try to think, if you can, that it is your own child brought back to you."
"I will," she promised, and she kept her word.
"You will spare neither expense nor trouble," he continued, "and when I return you shall be most richly recompensed. If all goes well, and the little one prospers with you, I shall leave her with you for two or three years at least. You have been a lady's-maid, the doctor tells me. In what families have you lived?"
"Principally with Lady L'Estrange, of Verdun Royal, sir," she replied. "I left because Miss L'Estrange was growing up, and my lady wished to have a French maid."
In after years he thought how strange it was that he should have asked the question.
"I want you," said Lord Charlewood, "to devote yourself entirely to the little one; you will be so liberally paid as not to need work of any other kind. I am going abroad, but I leave Dr. Letsom as the guardian of the child; apply to him for everything you want, as you will not be able to communicate with me."
He watched her as she took the child in her arms. He was satisfied when he saw the light that came into her face: he knew that little Madaline would be well cared for. He placed a bank note for fifty pounds in the woman's hands.
"Buy all that is needful for the little one," he said.
In all things Margaret Dornham promised obedience. One would have thought she had found a great treasure. To her kindly, womanly heart, the fact that she once more held a little child in her arms was a source of the purest happiness The only drawback was when she reached home, and her husband laughed coarsely at the sad little story.
"You have done a good day's work, Maggie," he said; "now I shall expect you to keep me, and I shall take it easy."