"Dead!" exclaimed Flower.
"Yes, although his father knows it not yet," said Mr. Kelso. "You remember all this was thirty-seven years ago, Miss Fielding. Well, to resume my story, Lord Ivon's heart turned to his younger son when all his other descendants were gone, and he came to me, his lawyer, and begged me to cross the ocean and seek an heir to Ivon."
"Alas!" sighed Flower, thinking of the little dead baby she had kissed and left in Poky's arms. Had it lived—her lovely little child—it would have been heir to one of the finest titles and estates in old England.
"So I came to this place," continued Mr. Kelso. "I have been here little more than a week, but I have had no trouble in tracing John Forrest, for many of the old people in the country about here remember him well. It seems he had poor luck, or perhaps his training as a rich man's son had not fitted him to encounter the hardships of life. He drifted down here from New York, and obtained employment as an overseer on a farm. Soon after he married the farmer's only child, a sweet girl named Mary. A year after Daisy was born, and her father died soon afterward with malarial fever. His wife survived until her daughter was ten years old, and, dying, left her to take care of her farmer grandparents. They died when Daisy was seventeen, and the farm was sold to satisfy a mortgage, and the beautiful granddaughter was thrown upon the world, helpless and penniless. She went into a grand family as a nursery governess, met Charley Fielding, and—the rest you know."
Her low moan of pain attested that she did, and for a moment there was a deep silence.
Then Mr. Kelso resumed:
"They told me that Daisy Forrest was dead, and her child, too, and I came here this afternoon to look at her grave before I went back to England to tell Lord Ivon with him the proud title and name must die. I am happy that I am spared this sorrowful task, for I think that after you have examined my credentials you will not hesitate to secure a maid and return with me to England that I may place you in the care of your great-grandparents."
He saw the old sexton, who had now replaced the turf and flowers on Daisy Forrest's grave, looking at them curiously as he leaned on his spade, and he beckoned him to approach.
Then he gave the old man a brief account of John Forrest's story, telling him that his father had been a rich man, and that poor Daisy's child was going home with him to live with her grandparents. He did not tell him that this great-grandfather was a nobleman, thinking that Flower would not wish to create too much sensation.