“Don’t you hurt me so!” Queenie cried with a keen pang of remorse, as she remembered how she had once rebelled against this woman, and refused to acknowledge her claim to relationship until it was proved beyond her power to gainsay it.
And now she would have given the world to have called her “grandmother,” and known that it was true.
“I don’t deserve your love,” she said. “I have been so wicked, and have vexed you so many times, but, after Margery, you are dearer to me now than any living creature, though I am not your grandchild—Margery is that; Margery is the baby born at Rome and hidden away from her father. Mrs. La Rue has told us all about it. She is my mother.”
Queenie spoke very low, and a flush stained her cheeks, where the tears were still falling though not so fast as at first. She was growing a little calmer and more composed, and was beginning to tell Mrs. Ferguson what she had heard, when Mr. Beresford was announced. To Margery, he had said, “Queenie has written me a strange story. Do you know anything about it?”
“Yes,” Margery answered, with a quivering lip, “I heard mother tell her.”
“And was that the first you knew of it?” he asked, scrutinizing her closely.
“No,” she said, hesitatingly, as if the confession were a pain. “I knew it a few weeks ago——”
“When you were sick, and you kept it to yourself for her sake,” Mr. Beresford interrupted her. “You are a brave girl, Margery. Few would have done what you have.”
“If they loved Queenie as I do they would,” she said. “Oh, Mr. Beresford, if it should be true, can we not keep it to ourselves? Need the world know it?”
“If it depended upon you and me, it might be done,” he replied. “But I am afraid we could not manage Queenie. She seems determined to do you justice. Where is she, and can I see her?”