"Sadly enough," said cousin Bessie, wiping her eyes with a little linen handkerchief, and folding her hands on her knees. "The truth came out when it was too late. Young Dalton's actions had been misconstrued by a malicious rumor, as many a good person's are. He had interested himself somewhat in Mlle. Campuzano at the request of the very man who, it was said, had determined to murder him, being a devoted and earnest friend to him all along. He waited patiently for a little while, thinking it would all come right in time; at length, he wrote such a pleading letter to your mother, urging her to renew her old trust in him, and to do him the justice, if not the kindness, of believing his solemn assurances, before the careless gossip of their mutual enemies. This letter reached our house on her wedding-day after she had left for her honey-moon trip.
"Shortly after her return, her aunt Liddy died, and as she was left sole heiress to the money and property, she was obliged to go to the funeral: there, she met Ernest Dalton once again. I believe their interview was heart-rending. She had her dignity as the wife of another man to sustain, and he had that dignity to respect, but he cleared himself in her eyes, and they bade one another a long farewell in the stillness of the death-chamber, with only the peaceful slumberer, who lay with the eternal sleep upon her cold drooped lids, as their witness and their safe-guard.
"Your poor mother was never the same again, and succumbed to the very first trial that beset her after this. She died, while you were yet struggling into existence. Heaven had pity upon her blighted life, and called her from the world of shadows and sighs that encompassed her round about. They repented—all of them—when repentance was only remorse, and kissed her dead lips with a passionate pleading for pardon, that was terrible to see.
"They christened you, calling you by her name, and Ernest Dalton was asked to be your god-father: these were the only amends they were ever able to make. I hope Heaven was merciful to them all, for they are dead and gone now," Cousin Bessie added, wiping fresh tears of bitter sadness from her eyes, "but it was a cruel wrong they did her—a cruel, cruel wrong," she repeated, swaying herself to and fro, and looking vacantly into the fire.
"And Ernest Dalton is my guardian, my god-father?" I said in a husky whisper, leaning towards her.
"Yes dear, did he never tell you? He couldn't speak of your mother, I suppose," she answered when I had shaken my head in a mute reply to her question; "he couldn't, God help him. I heard he carries her picture and his to this day, in a little locket on his watch-chain, and that he lives in voluntary singleness, determined that no one shall ever replace her in his love."
The tears were swimming in my eyes again: something throbbed and burned within my head, and my heart lay full and heavy in my breast. I remembered the little locket I had found, and saw Hortense's and my mistake about it now; but I would not speak of it then, I could not. I thought of Hortense's mysterious letter, and puzzled over it in painful confusion, but I would not mention that either, until it had shown me its meaning more definitely. One thing I did ask, with a trembling, unsteady voice:
"What became of this Miss Campuzano, did you hear, Cousin Bessie?"
"She married the Frenchman, dear, as she intended from the first. She liked the name and the prospect altogether of becoming his wife."
"What was his name?"