So Sadie Allen was at last face to face with Bayard Lorraine, the hero of her friend’s sad love story.
“And no wonder she worshiped him, for he looks much more like a prince than that wicked Carl Bernicci,” she said to herself, as she handed Bayard the best chair in her little front room, the while she made up her mind to tell him Fair’s sad story as it really was, and as no one knew it but herself.
He found himself almost moved to tears before she finished her eloquent recital. All the faults of the weak, ambitious mother were dragged to the light.
“It was all her fault. She would not have let her daughter refuse that man if she had wished, for she had brought her up from the very beginning to marry rich if she could,” she said, and at last he began to see light upon Fair’s dark past.
But it was only when she gave him the journal, the confidant of Fair’s girlish thoughts and hopes and fears, that he fully realized everything.
It did not seem to him that he was doing wrong to read it. He who had loved her so well was longing to know her better, and to exonerate her, if possible, from all the fault that lay at her door. Who could tell him half so much as the book on whose pages her tortured girlish heart was laid bare?
So while Sadie stooped to caress the toddling boy at her knee, he opened the pages at random, and here and there read words that went to his heart.
Prince or king, it would matter nothing, I should hate him still, for I know now too well that it was not for his own sake, nor even for his boasted gold I accepted him, but only that through him I might meet again my hero, Bayard Lorraine. It was wrong for me to marry him with such thoughts in my heart, and Heaven has punished me for my sin, but I was young and ignorant. They dazzled me by their promises, and I thought I could tolerate George Lorraine for the sake of what he could bestow on me!
He looked up at Sadie caressing her little child, and she saw that his eyes were wet.
“You will let me take this with me, Mrs. Osborne?”