"Lora, Lora," he said, in a gentle, persuasive voice, "listen to me. The baby is found. Xenie found it on the shore where you lost it out of your arms. It is safe—it is well, with Xenie."
Lora turned her hollow glance upon his face, and though no gleam of recognition shone in her eyes, his impressive words penetrated her soul. She threw out her arms yearningly.
"It is found, it is found! Oh, thank God!" she murmured, happily. "Bring him to me, for the love of Heaven! Lay him here upon my breast, my precious little son!"
"Oh, sir, then it is true she had a child; and it is living. I thought perhaps it was dead," said the poor widow.
"She has a child, indeed, and she lost it in her delirious flight; but her sister found it soon afterward. It is at this moment not more than four miles from here," answered the young man, without reflecting that many things might have happened during his long imprisonment of four days in the lonely little fishing village.
"Then, if you will take my advice, sir, as she is a friend of yours, you will try to get that child here as soon as possible. I will do the best I can for her, and the doctor has promised to do all in his power; but I believe that the child is the only thing that will save her life," said Dame Videlet, gravely shaking her head in its homely white cap.
"It shall be brought," said Howard, earnestly, and without a doubt but that he could keep the promise thus made.
Dame Videlet thanked God aloud, then added that the sooner it were brought the better it would be for the mother.
All the while poor Lora lay tossing in restless pain, and begging piteously for her little child to be laid upon her breast.