"You a slave!" exclaimed Mrs. Fitzgerald, with unfeigned astonishment. "That is incredible. That goes beyond any of the stories Abolitionists make up to keep the country in agitation."
"Judging by my own experience," rejoined Mrs. King, "I should say that the most fertile imagination could invent nothing more strange and romantic than many of the incidents which grow out of slavery."
She then went on to repeat her story in detail; not accusing Mr. Fitzgerald more than was absolutely necessary to explain the agonized and frantic state of mind in which she had changed the children. Mrs. Fitzgerald listened with increasing agitation as she went on; and when it came to that avowal, she burst out with the passionate exclamation: "Then Gerald is not my son! And I love him so!"
Mrs. King took her hand and pressed it gently as she said: "You can love him still, dear lady, and he will love you. Doubtless you will always seem to him like his own mother. If he takes an aversion to me, it will give me acute pain; but I shall try to bear it meekly, as a part of the punishment my fault deserves."
"If you don't intend to take him from me, what was the use of telling me this dreadful story?" impatiently asked Mrs. Fitzgerald.
"I felt compelled to do it on Eulalia's account," responded Mrs. King.
"Ah, yes!" sighed the lady. "How disappointed he will be, poor fellow!" After a brief pause, she added, vehemently: "But whatever you may say, he is my son. I never will give him up. He has slept in my arms. I have sung him to sleep. I taught him all his little hymns and songs. He loves me; and I will never consent to take a second place in his affections."
"You shall not be asked to do so, dear lady," meekly replied Mrs. King. "I will, as in duty bound, take any place you choose to assign me."
Somewhat disarmed by this humility, Mrs. Fitzgerald said, in a softened tone: "I pity you, Mrs. King. You have had a great deal of trouble, and this is a very trying situation you are in. But it would break my heart to give up Gerald. And then you must see, of course, what an embarrassing position it would place me in before the world."
"I see no reason why the world should know anything about it," rejoined Mrs. King. "For Gerald's sake, as well as our own, it is very desirable that the secret should be kept between ourselves."