“My boy, I loved her mother like that long after my love was hopeless. I knew her well; how this evil ever fell upon a child of hers I cannot understand.”
They were silent a moment, John thinking of Lola, Dr. Crossett of the mother, who, thank God, was not here to feel the shame of this. Her death had been a hard blow to him, harder even than the marriage that had taken her away from him forever, but to-day he was glad that she was dead. John began again, his sorrow finding the only relief it had known in the sympathy of this good friend.
“If I had ever seen a trace of it in her I could bear it better, but she was so good, so pure, that she used to frighten me. I never saw a look in her face that you would not see on the face of a happy, innocent child, until——”
John hesitated; in his mind there was a thought that he dared not put into words. Even to himself he had not dared to express it, but this man was wise; if there could be any truth in the wild idea that had forced itself into his brain here was a man who would know.
“She was always the same, Doctor, always, until that night, the first time I saw her after—after she was—hurt, the change began then; from that hour——”
“Oh!” He looked up, startled by a moan of terror, of horror, and saw that Maria had entered the room with a tea-tray in her hands. She was standing now, white as a dead woman, her eyes fixed upon the door. He turned to follow her frightened gaze, and as he did so a nameless dread came over him. He saw the door open slowly, very slowly, and a woman’s figure standing quietly on the threshold; he did not need to raise his eyes; he did not need the frightened cry from Maria nor the Doctor’s sharp exclamation; he knew, and knowing he slowly raised his head and looked into her face.
CHAPTER XXI
CONCLUSION
Lola stood there, leaning against the partly-opened door, looking at them, with a smile of curious amusement on her face. Maria, after one long look, sank to her knees and hid her face in her arms. John and the Doctor stood silent, both of them trying to find in this pale, wonderfully gowned, hollow-eyed but beautiful woman some trace of the girl they had loved. It was Lola—and yet——