With an aching heart, the young man turned his steps to her door to ask Madame Ray how the hapless girl fared.
Meanwhile, the lady had hurried from Rachel’s death-bed back to Cinthia’s room.
Kneeling down, she pressed joyful kisses on the sleeping face, so pale and woeful even in slumber, so that it was easy to guess at last the guarded secret of that young heart—the love that had never strayed from its object through long and hopeless years.
Softly, tenderly the happy mother drew aside the soft folds of lace and lines, and laid bare the beautiful white bosom of her daughter, searching until she found, just above the heart a remembered birthmark—a tiny crimson cross.
“The birthmark of the Rays! Oh, how well I remember this! Oh, my darling, my own, you are indeed my lost treasure! No wonder that I have always loved you so! It was the mother-heart that claimed you!” she cried, gladly, longing for Cinthia to awake and learn the happy truth that she was her own daughter, and not at all related to Arthur, whom she might marry when she would, only for the rash promise given to Fred Foster in a moment of reckless pride.
“Poor fellow! This will be sad news for him; but I believe that he will be generous to dear Cinthia,” she concluded; and sat down to watch the sleeper with the glad eyes of love.
It was awhile later that she heard a timid rap at the door, and found Arthur waiting outside, with a grave, sad face, though he said cheerfully:
“I have come to invite you and Cinthia to a wedding.”
“A wedding?”
In a few words he told her of the reconciliation between his father and mother, and the impending marriage.