"No, no, oh no! He is not my father; is he, Hugh? Tell me no. John, Dr. Richards, pray look at me and say it's all a dream, a dreadful dream! Oh, Hugh!" and to the brother, scorned so often, poor 'Lina turned for sympathy, while the stranger continued:
"It would be useless for me to say now that I loved her, Eliza, but I did, and when I heard soon after my marriage that I was a father, I said: 'Densie will never rest now until she finds me, and she must not come between me and Eliza," so I feigned an excuse and left my new wife for a few weeks. Eliza, you remember I said I had business in New York, and so I had. I went to Densie Densmore. I professed sorrow for the past. I made her believe me, and then laid a most diabolical plan. Money will do anything, and I had more than people supposed. I had a mother, too, at that time, a woman old and infirm, and good, even if I was her son. To her I went with a tale, half false, half true. There was a little child, I said, a little girl, whose mother was not my wife. I would have made her so, I said, but she died at the child's birth. Would my mother take that baby for my sake? She did not refuse, so I named a day when I would bring it. 'Twas that day, Densie, when I took you to the museum, and on pretense of a little business I must transact at a house in Park Row, I left you for an hour, but never went back again."
"No, never back again—never. I waited so long, waited till I almost thought I heard my baby cry, and then went home; but baby was gone. Alice, do you hear me?—baby was gone;" and the poor, mumbling creature, rocking to and fro, buried her bony fingers in Alice's fair hair.
"Poor Densie! poor auntie!" was all Alice said, as she regarded with horror the man, who went on:
"Yes, baby was gone—gone to my mother's, in a part of the city where there was no probability of its being found and I was gone, too. You are shocked, fair maiden, and well you may be," the convict said.
"In course of time there was a daughter born to me and to Eliza; a sweet little, brown-haired, brown-eyed girl, whom we named Adaline."
Instinctively every one in that room glanced at the black eyes and hair of 'Lina, marveling at the change.
"I loved this little girl, as it was natural I should, more than I loved the other, whose mother was a servant. Besides that, she was not so deeply branded as the other; see—" and pushing back the thick locks from his forehead, he disclosed his birthmark, while 'Lina suddenly put her hand where she knew there was another like it.
"At last there came a separation. Eliza would not live with me longer and I went away, but pined so for my child that I contrived to steal her, and carried her to my mother, where was the other one. 'Twas there you tracked me, Densie. You came one day, enacting a fearful scene, and frightening my children until they fled in terror and hid away from your sight."
"I remember, I remember now. That's where I heard the name," 'Lina said, while the convict continued: