Part 32 (2/2)

The sight of the room, the reference to a secret, the prospect of another private conference, forced back the mind of Amelius, in one breathless instant, to his first memorable interview with Mrs. Farnaby.

The mother's piteously hopeful words, in speaking of her lost daughter, rang in his ears again as if they had just fallen from her lips. ”She may be lost in the labyrinth of London.... To-morrow, or ten years hence, you _might_ meet with her.” There were a hundred chances against it--a thousand, ten thousand chances against it. The startling possibility flashed across his brain, nevertheless, like a sudden flow of daylight across the dark. _”Have_ I met with her, at the first chance?”

”Wait,” he cried; ”I have something to say before you speak to me. Don't deceive yourself with vain hopes. Promise me that, before I begin.”

She waved her hand derisively. ”Hopes?” she repeated; ”I have done with hopes, I have done with fears--I have got to certainties, at last!”

He was too eager to heed anything that she said to him; his whole soul was absorbed in the coming disclosure. ”Two nights since,” he went on, ”I was wandering about London, and I met--”

She burst out laughing. ”Go on!” she cried, with a wild derisive gaiety.

Amelius stopped, perplexed and startled. ”What are you laughing at?” he asked.

”Go on!” she repeated. ”I defy you to surprise me. Out with it! Whom did you meet?”

Amelius proceeded doubtfully, by a word at a time. ”I met a poor girl in the streets,” he said, steadily watching her.

She changed completely at those words; she looked at him with an aspect of stern reproach. ”No more of it,” she interposed; ”I have not waited all these miserable years for such a horrible end as that.” Her face suddenly brightened; a radiant effusion of tenderness and triumph flowed over it, and made it young and happy again. ”Amelius!” she said, ”listen to this. My dream has come true--my girl is found! Thanks to you, though you don't know it.”

Amelius looked at her. Was she speaking of something that had really happened? or had she been dreaming again?

Absorbed in her own happiness, she made no remark on his silence. ”I have seen the woman,” she went on. ”This bright blessed morning I have seen the woman who took her away in the first days of her poor little life. The wretch swears she was not to blame. I tried to forgive her.

Perhaps I almost did forgive her, in the joy of hearing what she had to tell me. I should never have heard it, Amelius, if you had not given that glorious lecture. The woman was one of your audience. She would never have spoken of those past days; she would never have thought of me--”

At those words, Mrs. Farnaby abruptly stopped, and turned her face away from Amelius. After waiting a little, finding her still silent, still immovable, he ventured on putting a question.

”Are you sure you are not deceived?” he asked. ”I remember you told me that rogues had tried to impose on you, in past times when you employed people to find her.”

”I have proof that I am not being imposed upon,” Mrs. Farnaby answered, still keeping her face hidden from him. ”One of them knows of the fault in her foot.”

”One of them?” Amelius repeated. ”How many of them are there?”

”Two. The old woman, and a young man.”

”What are their names?”

”They won't tell me their names yet.”

”Isn't that a little suspicious?”

”One of them knows,” Mrs. Farnaby reiterated, ”of the fault in her foot.”

”May I ask which of them knows? The old woman, I suppose?”

”No, the young man.”

”That's strange, isn't it? Have you seen the young man?”

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