“Why—why! what are you saying? I do not understand,” incoherently cried the startled woman, as she gazed wildly into that beautiful face before her, and began to realize something of the terrible truth yet to come.
“I did not mean that you should understand,” Virgie resumed, speaking more gravely. “I did not mean that you should ever know to whom you owed your life. I meant to do what good I could for you, and then go quietly away, taking with me as my only reward, the consciousness of a duty faithfully performed. I do not know why I have spoken thus even now, but the words seemed forced from me by a power beyond my control. Perhaps it is because you asked me to kiss you, to clasp your hand in friendly farewell, when I was conscious that you would wish me to do neither, if you knew who I am, that you would shrink from me, repel me, perhaps even hate me more than you have ever done. I see that you begin to realize who I am. Yes. I am Virginia Alexander, the woman whom your brother once loved, for I believe even now that he did love me then—and who worshiped him, who would have devoted her life to his happiness, and considered herself blessed in so doing.”
Lady Linton had fallen back upon her pillow as Virgie uttered that well remembered name, and now lay, as if transfixed, gazing upon her with a look of amazement mingled with something of terror.
A suspicion of the truth began to dawn upon her when the child had told her name; it had been strengthened when she had so innocently said she had no papa, and it was now confirmed by Virgie’s open declaration.
The knowledge almost paralyzed her; she could neither move nor speak; she had no power but to stare with a helpless, appalled look at that perfect figure, that pale, beautiful, high-bred face, as she realized, at last, the enormity of the wrong of which she had been guilty.
“You have seen my little daughter,” Virgie resumed, after a moment, with a tender, even pathetic inflection; “she is also your brother’s child, and the heiress of Heathdale——
“Does that offend you?” she asked, as Lady Linton shrank again, as if from a blow, at these words. “It is to be regretted, but it is a fact which nothing can change, and she will one day claim her own, even though her mother is no longer the wife of her father, and I trust that she will then do honor to the name and position which she will assume. You may rest assured that I shall attend most faithfully to her education, for it has been, and still shall be, my chief object in life to make her worthy in every way to be received as a representative of the ‘ancient and honored house of Heath.’ Pardon me if I seem ironical,” Virgie interposed, a slight smile flitting over her lips as she quoted this sentence, which had been burned into her brain so long ago; “but I cannot forget the cruel things which you wrote to your friend, Mrs. Farnum, ten years ago. Do you blame me for refusing to clasp, in pretended friendship, the hand that penned them? or for shrinking from the kisses of one who so scorned and mocked me; who offered me money, as if my honor was a thing to be bought, my wretchedness and despair something to be alleviated with gold? You wrote of me is ‘that person’—‘that girl,’ as if I belonged to a lower order of humanity; but, madam, my grandmother was an English woman like yourself, and perchance—though I assume nothing of the kind—there is as good blood in my veins as in your own. But,” with a weary sigh, “perhaps I am wrong to recriminate thus. I had no intention of saying aught like this when I came to you. I am afraid I have been inconsiderate of your weakness, but my words have come unbidden. I wish you no ill. I think I have proved that during the past week. I wish your brother no ill, if he is happy in his present relation; far be it from me to wish him to suffer as I have suffered, although he has done me the greatest wrong it is possible for a man to do a woman. It is a strange freak of fate, Lady Linton, this meeting between you and me, and yet I believe I do not regret that we have seen and known each other; it has served to show you what the woman, whom your brother wooed and won, is like; that although she may not have belonged to the titled aristocracy of a kingdom, she was at least a true-hearted daughter of a grand republic, and in no way his inferior in character or intellect. We may never meet again, and we may; I cannot tell; but some day the wrong that has been done me will be righted through the justice which must and shall be rendered to my daughter.”
As she ceased Virgie bowed gravely and then turned and quietly left the room, leaving Lady Linton more astonished and browbeaten—though it had been done in the most courteous and dignified way imaginable—than she had ever been before. For several minutes she sat staring, in a dazed way, at the door which had been so softly shut upon that graceful, retreating form, and almost feeling as if the whole interview must have been some hallucination of the brain.
That lovely woman—proud, beautiful, cultivated—with that magnificent form and carriage, the “low-born girl!” whom she supposed her brother had married! It seemed impossible! She was so entirely different from what she had conceived her to be.
Why, this brilliant creature was fitted to grace a throne—to shine a star in the highest circles of even her own country, of which she was so arrogantly proud, and she, by her cunning plotting, her falsehood and calumny, had debarred her from her home, from all the rights which legally belonged to her; she had brought shame and dishonor upon her, broken her heart, and, in so doing, had made her own brother’s home desolate, his life almost a barren waste.