“Do not look so wretched, lady, for all is well with your daughter, and she shall be restored to your arms.”
“Thank God—thank God!” cried the mother, with a rush of glad tears.
“So it was Madame Ray’s child that you stole, Rachel? But why did you do such a wicked thing?” cried her mistress.
“Oh, Mrs. Flint, it was for the greed of gold, that has always cursed my life—the longing for gold and pleasure! A beautiful woman came to me, and said: ‘I have been married two years, and I have no child. My husband will never love me till I give him an heir. I would like a little girl because his first wife had a boy, and I hate it. Find me a pretty baby, and help me to impose it on him as my own when he returns from his long journey, and you shall live with me, and I will make you rich.’ Wretch that I was, I stole Mrs. Ray’s sweet baby, and helped the other woman to fool her husband. She paid me well; but growing weary of my extortions after two years, she and her husband stole away North, where I could never trace them, till one night I saw him on the train and followed him, only to find that his wife had died years before.”
“But my child, my darling, where is she?” sobbed the eager mother.
“Where is the child?” echoed Mrs. Flint, suspiciously, and Rachel Dane answered, gladly:
“Oh, how glad I am to restore her safe to her mother’s arms! She is here with you, Mrs. Flint—the girl called Cinthia Dawn, but no kin of yours, for she is the baby I stole for Mrs. Dawn, the unloved wife—the child of Mrs. Richard Ray, and may Heaven forgive my sin!”
CHAPTER XLII.
IN THE SUNSHINE.
“He laughed a laugh of merry scorn;
He turned and kissed her where she stood;