“Darling Dalrymple! What does it mean? It cannot be possible that she ever recovered the child! No, for the poor, kindly folk who were at my poor sister’s deathbed told me of her lovely, gentle daughter, golden-haired Jessie, with the big, soft, dark eyes and the tender, rosy lips, to whom the mother clung in dying, bidding her be a little mother to Mark and Willie. No, it could not be Jessie. She has most likely adopted a child in place of her lost daughter—a child that death has taken away!”
He remained silently musing with his eyes on the death notice till every printed word seemed photographed on his brain.
“Verna Dalrymple—Darling Dalrymple! How strange that she did not throw away the name with all the rest that it stood for—fickle heart! I suppose she had to keep it for the child’s sake, sweet little Jessie! Ah, how strange we never guessed she was coming! If we had known how different all might have been! I must have been more patient of her fretting, she more tender of my restlessness under misfortune! The dear little one coming must have held our hearts together—hearts now so terribly sundered!” And Leon Dalrymple bowed his fair head heavily while waves of memory swept across his heart.
CHAPTER XV.
FORGETFULNESS, THE GREAT PANACEA.
A lonely life and much brooding inclines the mind to strange aspects.
Leon Dalrymple’s thoughts dwelt persistently on the dead girl—his divorced wife’s adopted daughter as he believed.
He felt a painful, almost jealous curiosity over her, wondering if she had usurped the love that belonged to Jessie as well as her place in her mother’s home.
“I should like to look upon her face!” he repeated over and over to himself, and the desire grew at last into a bold determination.
The early autumn twilight found him at the cemetery, whispering into the ear of the feeble old sexton who recoiled with surprise at his proposition:
“No, sir, no, it would be as much as my place is worth! I can’t do it!” he protested, but the clink of gold made him change his opinion.