"I can hardly remember now," she replied--"it is so long since. I think my chief motive was dread lest my darling should be taken from me. I thought that, if strangers opened the box and found out who she was, they would take her away from me, and I should never see her again. I knew that the box held all the papers relating to her, so I took it deliberately."
"Then, of course," said the earl, "you know her history?"
"No," she replied, quickly; "I have never opened the box."
"Never opened it!" he exclaimed, wonderingly.
"No, sir--I have never even touched it; it is wrapped in my old shawl just as I brought it away."
"But why have you never opened it?" he asked, still wondering.
"Because, sir, I did not wish to know who the little child really was, lest, in discovering that, I should discover something also which would compel me to give her up."
Lord Mountdean looked at her in astonishment. How woman-like she was! How full of contradictions! What strength and weakness, what honor and dishonor, what love and selfishness did not her conduct reveal!
"Then," continued Margaret Dornham, "when the doctor died, people frightened me. They said that the child must go to the work-house. My husband soon afterward got into dreadful trouble, and I determined to leave the village. I tell the truth, sir. I was afraid, too, that you would return and claim the child; so I took her away with me to London. My husband was quite indifferent--I could do as I liked, he said. I took her and left no trace behind. After we reached London, my husband got into trouble again; but I always did my best for the darling child. She was well dressed, well fed, well cared for, well educated--she has had the training of a lady."
"But," put in Lord Mountdean, "did you never read my advertisments?"