"Forgive!" she said faintly; "I was mad! I knew nothing, my child."
"Oh, mother, mother! why did you not tell me I was your child?"
"She did not know," said Tim, who was holding a cup of wine to the lips of the woman he claimed as his wife. "I did not think her worthy to know the truth, and so she never learned that it was her own daughter she brought up."
"Cruel! cruel!" murmured Miss Linisfarne. "Would nothing less than twenty years of misery satiate your revenge?"
"No," replied her husband, curtly.
"Do not reproach her," said Jarner, in a gentle tone. "Do you not see she is dying? I have sent for Dr. Merle. Here he comes!"
"Merle!" said Tim, with a frown. "No, not Merle, but Mallard."
The feeble little doctor ran up to the group, and fell on his knees beside Miss Linisfarne. She looked at him in amazement.
"Mallard!"
"Oh, Laura, Laura! After all these years!"