Mr. Grey thought it was St. Luke’s, as Mrs. Clayton was an attendant there. They might——
He did not finish the sentence, for Magdalen started quickly, exclaiming:
“There must be a Parish Register, and there we shall find it recorded, and possibly trace Mrs. Storms. Let us go at once to the Rectory, if there is one.”
Her bonnet and shawl were on in a trice, a carriage was called, and the three were soon on their way to the house of the Rev. Henry Fowler, Rector of St. Luke’s. He was a young man, who had only been there for a year or two, but Magdalen’s beauty and excitement enlisted his sympathy at once, and he went with them to the church and took from a dusty shelf an old worn-looking volume, wherein he said was recorded the births, deaths, and baptisms of twenty and twenty-five years ago. It was Magdalen who took the book in her own hands, and sitting down upon the chancel steps with her bonnet falling back from her flushed face and her white lips compressed together, turned the pages eagerly, while the three men stood looking at her. Suddenly she gave a cry, and the three came near her.
“Look,” she said, “it’s here. There was a child baptized,” and she pointed to the record of the baptism of “Magdalen Laura,” daughter of Arthur and Laura Grey. Sponsors, “Mr. and Mrs. James Storms, Cynthiana, Kentucky.”
Then suddenly a cloud passed over her face as she said sadly, “But there is only one. Where is Madeline?”
“Turn to the deaths,” Guy said, and with trembling fingers Magdalen did as he bade her, but found no trace of Madeline.
Only Mrs. Clayton’s death was recorded there, and the tears gathered in Magdalen’s eyes and dropped upon the register as she felt that her hopes were being swept away. It was Guy who comforted and reassured her by suggesting that Madeline might have died before the christening, and Magdalen caught eagerly at it, and springing up exclaimed, “Yes, and they neglected to record her death; that’s it, I know; we will find this Mrs. Storms; we will go at once to Cynthiana. Is it far? Can we reach it to-day?”
It was not very far, the clergyman said. It was on the railroad between Cincinnati and Lexington, but he did not believe she could go that day, as the train was already gone.
It seemed an age to wait until the morrow, but there was no help for it; and Magdalen passed the day as best she could, and when the morning came and they started for Cynthiana, she was almost sick with excitement, which increased more and more the nearer she drew to Mrs. Storms, who was to confirm her hopes or destroy them forever.