“Come, Grace,” he said, gently addressing his weeping sister in a voice that one would scarcely have recognized as his own, “let me take you to the machine. Go home at once, dear, and leave me to see what steps may be taken in this dreadful affair. Your loyalty to Iris has taught me a lesson, Gracie, and from this hour she shall find in me as faithful a brother as you have been a sister to her.”
Grace allowed him to lead her to the car, saying, as he was closing the door upon her:
“She is innocent, brother; there is some enemy trying to work her ruin. Be a friend to her in her hour of need, for she seems to stand alone—even Isabel——”
“Hush, darling; not a word of Isabel. I have asked her to be my wife,” interrupted St. John, adding, in a tone of ineffable tenderness: “God bless you for your faith in Iris, little sister, and God forgive me for the wrong I have done her by my cruel doubts.”
As St. John’s car drove away a taxicab was passing along, and the gentleman hailed it and placed it at the disposal of the officers to convey Iris to prison.
In the meantime Iris had stolen softly into her mother’s chamber, and fallen on her knees by her bedside. Mrs. Hilton was still sleeping, and could not hear the girl’s low sobbing, nor the broken, inarticulate words that fell from her lips.
“Oh, mother, my mother, if you could speak one kind, pitying word to me it would not be so hard to suffer for your sake. If you could hear me when I pray for you, if you could join me in asking God to forgive your sin. Oh, dear Saviour! Thou hearest me. Wilt Thou let my suffering atone for this dying mother’s sin?”
As if the Divine Comforter had lifted some portion of the burden from her well-nigh broken heart, Iris arose from her knees and bent closely over the sleeper.
“This is our last earthly parting,” she whispered, as she touched her lips softly to those of the unconscious sufferer. “Your child will see your face on earth no more. Good-by—good-by—my poor, poor mother; I leave you in God’s keeping—good-by, good-by.”
Iris now hurried from the room, lest the sound of her choking sobs might arouse the sleeper, and a few moments later she left the house, going forth with the calmness of utter despair to meet her fate.