y dear Mrs. Thorndyke;—Will you come and spend the evening with me? Fetch the little people. I shall be quite alone.
"Jane Liston-Darcy."
It was not the first time such notes had come to the tenement house—not the first time they had been accepted. Laurence was always away. The late hours had begun again. The evenings at home were so dreary. It was a glimpse of the old glad life, before poverty and hard work had ground her down. Yes, she would go.
Mrs. Darcy, very simply, but very prettily dressed, welcomed her. Baby Nellie she took in her arms and kissed fondly, but little Laurie, with his father's bold, blue eyes and trick of face, she shrank from. The father she could face unmoved; the old pain actually came back when she looked at the child.
As they sat, a pretty group in the gas-light, a card was brought in. Mrs. Darcy put the baby off her lap and passed the card to Helen.
"Your husband," she said. "He begged for this interview, and—I have granted it. But I wished you to be present. Whether I do right or wrong, you shall hear what he has to say to me. You love and trust him still. You shall hear how worthy he is of it. But first—have you ever heard the name of Norine Bourdon?"
"Norine Bourdon! the girl whom Laurence—"
"Betrayed by a false marriage—for whom he was disinherited. I am she."
"You!" Helen Thorndyke recoiled.
"It was Norine Bourdon, not Jane Liston, Mr. Darcy adopted. Have you not then the right to hear what your husband has to say to me? But it shall be as you wish."