CHAPTER XIII.
RUPERT’S REQUEST.
“Virgie Alexander!” repeated Mrs. Farnum to herself, as she acknowledged the presentation, and it almost seemed as if some one had struck a blow upon her heart as she recalled that long-forgotten name and looked into that delicate, clear-cut face, while a vision from out of the past suddenly rose to confront her.
She saw the tall, slight figure of a beautiful woman very like this young girl, standing straight and proud before her, as, with a face of agony and a voice full of despair, she asserted her own purity and her child’s legitimacy, and hurled back scorn for scorn upon the arrogant women who repudiated her claim and tried to crush her with a vile conspiracy.
Again she seemed to hear those ringing, prophetic words, “My child is also the lawful child of Sir William Heath; she is the heiress of Heathdale, and she shall yet occupy the position that rightfully belongs to her. Let your ‘peer of the realm and his honored family’ take warning; the time will come when a righteous judgment will overtake them.”
She shivered slightly as she recalled all this and Virgie wondered what should make the fine-looking woman grow so suddenly pale, and why she should regard her with such a fixed and startled gaze.
But she gave the circumstance only a passing thought, and then turned to speak to Lady Royalston, to whom Lady Huntington also presented her, only to find herself again the object of a curious and astonished stare.
Sadie Farnum turned to her mother as the maiden passed on, and the eyes of the two women, as they met, expressed a great deal.
“Her name is Virgie, and she looks like that woman,” whispered Mrs. Farnum, in an agitated voice.
“She certainly does; but Lady Huntington introduced her as Miss Alexander.”
“Don’t you understand? That was the name of her father—that man who defaulted from the —— bank, in San Francisco.”