“Mr. de Vere, will you show me now the clothes worn by Little Sweetheart when you saved her life in the railway wreck many years ago?” he asked.
Then every one saw that Mrs. de Vere, the elder, had been carrying all the time a small bundle which she now began to unroll, while Lord Stuart, taking his sister’s hand, led her forward.
“Look at these things, my dear, and see if you recognize any of them,” he said, in a voice of tender emotion.
Lady Edith uttered a startled cry and slipped down upon her knees before the gentle, white-haired lady, beginning to touch the pretty embroidered robes with shaking fingers.
“Oh, brother, brother! these are the garments I embroidered for my darling little daughter!” she faltered, “and—oh, Heaven! here is her picture!” kissing it with despairing love. “Brother, brother! what does it mean? Oh, my lost Little Sweetheart! my angel!” she wept, wildly.
He stooped and lifted her up so that he could hold the half-fainting form in his arms.
“My darling, forgive me for deceiving you all these years,” he cried. “It was done to save your life and your reason, for when you lay ill so long and your little child was stolen from you, all efforts at its recovery proving vain, we were afraid to tell you the dreadful truth. We believed it better to pretend that the child had died and gone to join its father in a better world than for you to know that it was in the power of a wicked woman who stole it for purposes of revenge. I have tried to trace the child for years, and at last, by a fortunate accident, I found that our sweet Thea here was your missing child. Go to her, my darling.” But Thea, with a rapturous cry, bounded forward, and mother and child wept wildly in each other’s arms.
CHAPTER LXXII.
Camille made a step forward, and was about to make an angry speech, but Finette restrained her.
“Wait—listen!” muttered the curious French woman.