"It sounds like a fairy tale, my dear! While the proud mother was dreaming her golden dreams, the young girl met and fell in love with a poor artist--a boy, for he was only twenty-two, whose family was quite unknown and who had nothing in the wide world but a profound belief in his own great talent. The young girl went proudly and joyously with him to the mother to tell of their happiness. The mother would only believe that the boy was an adventurer--a fortune seeker; she saw an end to the plans of her whole lifetime, an obscure future for the girl she had so carefully educated. She sent the young man away and forbade his communicating in any way with her daughter. For weeks the girl pleaded vainly, the mother would not listen; in a fury of disappointment she even locked her for days in her room, thinking to break the young will! But there is an old saying that true love will find a way--the day came when the young girl slipped away, joined her lover and a few hours later returned to tell the mother that they had been married. Then it was that anger and baffled pride drove out all love and justice from the mother's heart; heaping curses upon the frightened girl she drove her from her, bidding her never cross her path again! The girl and boy went away and from that day to this the unhappy woman has never laid eyes upon them. Her rage brought about a spell not unlike what she is having now; for days and days she lay in her bed refusing to let anyone near her. Then, finally, as the weeks grew into months, slowly into her heart crept the realization of what she had done. Remorse began eating at her soul. She tried vainly to find some trace of the daughter; with only Elsbeth she wandered for month after month over every country of the globe, seeking everywhere! She spent almost a fortune on her search. But there was never a sign. It was as if the world had swallowed them. And, finally, broken by her sorrow, unhappy and discouraged, without any friends and with only a little of her former wealth left, she came back to this city and to this old house. It looked then just the way it does now. She threw out anything in it that might make it even a little cheerful and then settled down to die! But life, cruelly enough, has hung on and on! I have learned her story from things she has told me; for some strange reason she has seemed to want to confide in me. And Elsbeth, too, has sometimes softened a little and talked about the old days! That is her sad story, my dear! I know, now, how tender you will always be with her and I have often thought that perhaps you may remind her--a little--of the--lost baby, because you are young and like a flower, too!"
Two bright spots of color burned in Renée's cheeks. To herself she was saying: "Wait until I tell Pat!" The thrill of the secret of the lost baby held her more than any sympathy for the old lady; perhaps deep in her heart some sense of justice told her that the proud mother had had just the punishment she deserved.
Mrs. Lee had turned toward the door. "The doctor is going! Wait here, Renée, until I call you. He may have some directions to give."
Renée looked about the room. What a horrible place! Even the gold of the sunlight dimmed to a cold lustre as it lay across the dusty surface of the shabby furniture! Everything was so unspeakably ugly and so still! She suddenly felt very lonely. A moment's wild impulse tempted her to run back to Pat as fast as her feet could fly! They had been having such fun fixing the costumes; the pink-curtained room had been so cheery, Peter Pan had been singing so lustily--why should she stay here?
Except for the low murmur of voices from the hall where Mrs. Lee was talking to the doctor, the only sound to break the awful stillness was the loud ticking of old Elsbeth's clock in the kitchen. It had a mournfully resentful tick as much as to say to its unhappy listeners: "No matter how wretched you feel, I go on--I go on--I go on!"
The door going into the room where Mrs. Forrester lay was closed. As she thought of crossing its threshold little Renée shuddered. A fear she could not explain gripped her! After all, she was only a little girl; she had never seen anyone suffer--except Gabriel when he was tortured with his rheumatism; she had never seen anyone die--her own dear mother had seemed to just go to sleep! And what if Mrs. Forrester should die? If she wanted to go back home, surely Mrs. Lee would let her go!
And then, as she waited, bits of the story Mrs. Lee had told her flashed back across her thoughts and held her. Now her sympathy was not so much for the girl bride as for the poor, lonely mother, wandering broken-hearted, over the world!
"The poor thing!" she said aloud, and then jumped at the sound of her own voice.
A door closed behind the doctor; Mrs. Lee came into the room.
"She is quiet now. The doctor says there is no danger. It is all her nerves. Only--women her age can't indulge in hysterics without serious results! What a picture you are in all this gloom, child! It's a strange coincidence that you should have had this dress on! Perhaps it will rouse her."