"What form did her delirium take?"
"Oh, sir," cried the fisherman, in a tone of pity and sympathy for the wretched unknown, "it seemed like she had lost her baby. She was going around from one to the other in the place asking, asking everyone, for her baby. She said she was so tired and she had lost it out of her arms in the rain and the darkness, and could not find it again."
Howard's heart gave a great, tumultuous bound of surprise, then almost stopped beating with the suddenness of the shock.
It all rushed over him with the suddenness of a revelation.
It had seemed so strange to him that Mrs. St. John should have taken the tender little babe with her in the rain and wind when she went to search for Lora.
The truth flashed over him like lightning now.
Xenie had found the babe upon the sand where Lora had dropped it in her fevered flight.
No wonder she had been so angry and defiant when he had questioned her about it.
He felt sure now, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the unknown sick woman in the poor widow's cottage could be none other than Lora herself.
"Poor, unhappy creature," he thought, with a thrill of commiseration. "It must be that God himself has sent me here to succor and befriend her."