At that moment the little one, who had been sleeping, slowly opened its great, dark, solemn eyes, looked up into the face of Royal Ainsley, and uttered a plaintive little sob.
It was not often that he noticed little children—indeed, he had an aversion to them—but he could not understand the impulse that made him bend forward and look with interest into the flower-like little face.
Where had he seen just such a face? The great, dark, solemn eyes, so like purple pansies, held him spell-bound.
An impulse which he could not control or define caused him to reach out his trembling hand and touch the waxen little fingers, and the contact made the blood rush through his veins like fire. He tried to speak, but his tongue seemed too thick and heavy to perform its functions.
The woman did not notice his agitation. She was busily engaged in unwrapping a small parcel which she had tied up in oil silk.
Then, to his astonished gaze, Mrs. Lester held up before him a beautiful bracelet made of tiny pink sea-shells, with a heavy gold clasp, upon which was engraved, "From R. to I."
If Mrs. Lester had but looked at him, she would have seen that his face had grown ghastly.
At a glance he recognized the bracelet as one which he had designed and presented to Ida May, at Newport, when he believed her to be the heiress of the wealthy Mays.
"That is not all," said Mrs. Lester, holding up a man's pocket-book, which he recognized as his own—-the identical one he had sent up to Ida May by the porter, with a little change in it, on the morning he deserted her.
Again he opened his mouth to speak; but no sound issued from his lips. The pocket-book contained only a part of a sleeve-link that had belonged to himself, the other part of the link was in his pocket at that moment.