Clemency's face lightened. She spoke with that fatuous innocence and romance of young girls, and often of older women, to whom romance and sentiment are in the place of reason. "Then I know who that man was," she announced in a delighted voice. "You and Uncle Tom thought I would never know, but I do know. I have found out my own self."
"Who was he, dear?"
"Oh, I don't know who he was really, and I don't know who that woman was. She [pg 276] does mix up things a good deal, but this much I do know—why Uncle Tom passed off my aunt for my mother, and why we were always hiding from that man. He was in love with my mother, and he was in love with me, because I am so much like her. Now, tell me honest, dear, didn't Uncle Tom ever tell you that that man was in love with my mother before I was born?"
"Yes, dear," James answered, fairly bewildered over the fashion in which truth was lending itself to the need of falsehood.
Clemency nodded her head triumphantly. "There, I told you I knew," said she. "Poor man, it was dreadful of him to pursue me so, and make us all so unhappy, and of course I never could have married him, even if it had not been for you. I do think he looked like a wicked man, and of course I never could have endured the thought of marrying a man who had been in love with my mother, even if he had been ever so good. But I can't help being sorry for him; he must have loved my mother so much, and he must have wasted his whole life; and then to die among strangers so suddenly, poor man."
James felt a sort of pleasure at hearing the girl express, all unknowingly, sympathy [pg 277] for her dead father. The tears actually stood in her eyes. "The queerest thing to me is that woman," she added musingly, after a minute. Then again her face lightened. "Why, I do believe she was his sister," she cried, "and that was the reason she wanted to get me, and the reason why she was so dreadfully upset when she heard he was dead, poor thing. Well, of course, I can't help feeling glad that I am not in danger any more; but I am sorry for that poor man, even if he wasn't good." A tear rolled visibly down Clemency's cheeks. Then she got out her handkerchief and sobbed violently. "Oh, I haven't realized," she moaned, "I haven't realized until this minute, how terrible it is that she wasn't my mother."
"She was as good as a mother to you, dear."
"Yes, I know, but she wasn't, and it hurts me worse now she is gone than it would have done when she was alive. I don't seem to have anything."
"You have me."
Then Clemency ran to him, and he held her on his knee and comforted her, then tore himself away to make his morning round of calls. Clemency followed him to the door, [pg 278] and kissed her hand to him as he drove away. James had good reason to remember it, for it was the last loving salutation from her for many a day.