“Oh, wait; you have yet to learn that my heart was not all right,” she moaned, dropping her head upon her hand. “My baby was a beautiful child—I realized that the first time I looked upon her, but I did not dare to let my love go out toward her, for I knew that I must give her up, at least for a time. And yet, what to do with her was a very trying question. At first I thought of putting her into some institution, requiring some pledge that she should not be given away within a specified time. But I found I could not do this, so I advertised for some one to adopt her, promising to give five hundred dollars with the child. I received numberless letters in reply, but only one out of them all really pleased me, and this was signed ‘August and Alice Damon.’”
“Ah! now I understand,” interposed Colonel Mapleson, glancing quickly at Mr. Huntress, and looking intensely relieved.
Then his eyes wandered to Geoffrey.
“How wonderful! that those two should have found a home in the same family!” he murmured.
“I appointed a meeting with Mr. and Mrs. Damon,” his wife went on. “They came, and at once I knew that they were the very people to whom I would confide my little girl, in preference to all others. But you gave me an assumed name,” she said, pausing, and turning to Mr. Huntress.
“Not an assumed name, madame, but only a part of my real name, which is August Damon Huntress,” that gentleman explained.
“Why did you withhold your surname from me?”
“Madame, I knew well enough that your name was not Marston. I felt sure that no mother would give away her child, as you were doing, and reveal her identity. On the other hand, I did not wish the identity of the child preserved. I did not intend that you should have any advantage over me. If I took her, I meant her to be mine wholly, without running any risk of having her taken from me, or of ever learning that she had been abandoned to the care of strangers. Consequently, I gave you the name of Damon.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Mapleson, with a sigh, “as it happened, it made no difference, but if I had suspected it at the time, you would not have had my child, for I meant to keep track of her. I meant to have her again just as soon as my husband and I were reunited.”
“But you told me,” began Mr. Huntress, with an amazed, horrified face——