"There is something that by right is yours."
"Mine?..." She unrolled the tissue-paper, and the brilliants that were set about the miniature sent spurts of white and green and rosy fire between the slender, ivory-hued fingers that turned it about. She gave a little gasping cry of recognition:
"It is—me! How could you have managed——?" Then, as the sweet grey eyes of fair dead Lucy smiled up into her own: "I do not know how I am sure of it," she said, with a catching in her breath, "but this must be my mother!"
Saxham bent his head in answer to her look. His eyes bade her question no further. She faltered:
"May I not know how it came into your hands?"
"Through the death," Saxham answered, "of an evil man. You know his name. He probably robbed your father of that miniature with other things; but I can only surmise this. I cannot positively say."
"You speak of my father." Her face was quivering, her eyes entreated. "Tell me what you know of him, and of"—she kissed the miniature, and held it to her cheek—"of my mother?"
"Your father," said Saxham, "was an officer and a gentleman. The surname that you exchanged for mine, poor child! was really his. His Christian name is engraved there"—he pointed to the inner rim of the band of brilliants —"with that of the lady who was your mother. She was beautiful; she was tender and devoted; she loved your father well enough to give up every social aim and every worldly advantage for his sake. She died loving him. He died—I should not wonder if he died of sorrow for her loss. For hearts can break, though the Faculty deny it!"
He swung about to leave the room. She was murmuring over her new-found treasure.
"'Lucy to Richard' ... 'Richard' ..." she repeated. A wave of roseate colour broke over her with the memory of the hand that had touched and the voice that had spoken to her in her Heaven-sent vision of the previous morning, when the Beloved had come back from Paradise to lay a charge upon her child.