CHAPTER XVII.
DALRYMPLE’S SECRET.
Jessie’s large, soft, dark eyes turned on her father’s face with a look that shook his soul, they were so like other eyes he had once loved.
She cried pleadingly:
“No, no, for I have had such a sweet dream of my mother it thrills my heart yet. Let me tell it to you, papa!”
The dark eyes and the pleading voice pierced his heart like a knife.
Why had God given her this subtle likeness to her mother that would always be like a thorn in his heart?
He could not answer for his tumultuous thoughts, and she continued thrillingly:
“Such a strange dream, papa!—sweet and strange, for I seemed to be dead, but I felt no sorrow for it, because life had been cruel to me, and I was glad to be at rest. Then she seemed to come and stand by my side, the mother I had never known till an hour before my death, when I saw her only as a proud, rich stranger. But in death she seemed to belong to me. She knelt by me and kissed my face, my hands, my hair; she called me Darling, and her tears rained on me while she deplored the cruel fate that parted us in life, and restored me to her only in death. Tell me, papa, could this be true? This proud, beautiful lady, was she my mother?”
He had listened in surprise and wonder, and now he said evasively:
“It was only a dream, you know, dear.”