“It was about this time that I fell in with Gustave La Rue, who offered me marriage. He was a good-natured easy-going man, who would never trouble me much with questions concerning the past, provided I made his home comfortable and his life easy, and so I married him, and gave Margery his name, and said to strangers that she was his daughter. He was fond of children and always kind to her, and never pressed me hard with regard to her parentage but once, and then I swore to him that she was not my child; but he did not believe me, though he never suspected the truth.”
“And when I went to your room in the Rue St. Honore, you knew I was Margery’s sister?” Queenie said; and Christine replied:
“Yes, and kissed the chair you sat upon, and in my poor blind way thanked God for sending you there, and thanked him again when, through your influence, Margery was placed at the same school with you, and her education paid for by the man who never suspected the truth, or even knew that the little girl in whom his daughter was so interested was anything to me until her education was finished and she was a grown young lady, then he learned it accidentally and was very angry and bade me keep you apart, lest in some way you should learn who I was.
“It was then that the idea of emigrating to America was suggested to my mind by some ladies for whom Margery had worked, and who gave such glowing accounts of the country and the prospects for dressmaking that I began to consider the matter seriously, and finally made up my mind to go, without communicating with Mr. Hetherton upon the subject. I wrote him, however, from Oak Bluffs, and directed to the old address in Paris, but possibly he never received my letter.”
“Yes, he did; I am sure he did,” Queenie exclaimed. “There were letters forwarded to him at Liverpool, and one of them made him very angry, Pierre told me. He was present when papa read it, and after that he was very nervous and excited, and suggested to me that we give up America and go back to Paris. But I would not listen. I made him come, and he died on the voyage, and you were the cause of his death. He dreaded meeting you here, and the dread and the remorse killed him. Oh, papa—I can see him so plain as his eyes followed me, and he made me promise to forgive him if something ever came to my knowledge, and I promised; but it is so hard. Oh, Margie, if it were not for you, I could not keep my promise, and I don’t know as I can at all, he was so bad—if all she says is true. It would have been better to have left me in Marseilles where I was born—left me to poverty and want—for then I should have known nothing better, and might have been as happy as the girls I have seen dancing on the street for the amusement of the crowd. But now, to fall so far—it makes me dizzy, and sick, and dazed, and there’s a buzzing in my head, and a feeling as if I were crazed and could not understand it at all.”
She was very white, with a drawn look about her lips, which alarmed Margery, who bent over her and said:
“You have heard enough. There can be nothing more to tell which will interest you. Mother must go out now, and leave you to rest.”
“Yes, yes, Margie; tell her to go; I am so tired and sick,” Queenie whispered, and without a word Christine left the room, and the two girls were alone.
CHAPTER XLIII.
THE SISTERS.
