"Where is the woman who was speaking to me?"
"She is outside," the Doctor said. "I told her to wait. But you really must not see her for a time."
"I am all right now," Captain Bayley said, rising to his elbow, "and it will agitate me less to see her than to wait. She brought me very strange news, news which I never thought to hear. It is not bad news, my dear," he said, to Alice, "it is the best news I ever heard. You need not go away, Doctor," he said, seeing the physician was preparing to leave; "you are an old friend, and know all about it; besides, it is no secret. You know how I searched for very many years for my daughter and her child, and came at last to the conclusion that both must be dead, for she was in a dying state when last heard of. Well, I have found that the boy is alive. He has been brought up by the woman who is the mother of a boy who works here."
"Oh! I know," Alice exclaimed, "Frank told me the story. She had told him about a woman who had fallen down at her door years ago, and how she had brought up the child. But O uncle!" she said pitifully, "I have a sad thing to tell you. Frank said that he was such a nice boy, so clever and good. Frank used to go and help him with his books, and he can read Latin and all sorts of things; but, uncle, he met with an accident when he was little, and he is a cripple."
For a minute Captain Bayley was silent.
"It is part of my punishment, dear," he said at last, "God's will be done. However, cripple or not, I am thankful to find that, from what you say, he is a boy whom I can own without shame, for the thought has troubled me always, that, should Ella's son be alive, he might have grown up a companion of thieves, a wandering vagabond. Thank God, indeed, it is not so! I am glad you told me, Alice. Now, let me see this good woman who has been a mother to him."
Mrs. Holl was again called in, and was asked to sit down.
"The question you wished to ask me," Captain Bayley said, "was, I suppose, whether I could give you any clue as to who was the woman you took in, and whose child you adopted? She was my daughter."
"Lor', sir!" Mrs. Holl exclaimed, "who would have thought such a thing?"
"Who, indeed," Captain Bayley repeated; "but so it was. For years I sought for her in vain, and had long since given up all hope of ever hearing of her. Have you got the seal with you?"