Part 30 (1/2)

'But that's not all! I saw them again under the gas when I got out. I was very near trying to speak to her, but I lost sight of her in the throng; but I saw that face so like Master Michael, only scared and just ready to cry.'

'You'll run about telling that fine ghost-story,' said Ida roughly.

'But Louisa could not have been a ghost,' said Rose, bewildered. 'I thought she was his nursery-maid taking him somewhere! Didn't she--'

then with a sudden flash--'Oh!'

'Turned off long ago for flirting with that scamp Rattler,' said Herbert.

'Now she has run off with him.'

'There was a sailor-looking man with her,' said Rose.

'I never heard such intolerable nonsense!' burst out Ida. 'Mere absurdity!'

Herbert looked at her with surprise at the strange pa.s.sion she exhibited.

He asked--

'Did you say the Hall girl had run away?'

'Oh, never mind, Herbert!' cried Ida, as if unable to command herself.

'What is it to you what a nasty, horrid girl like that does?'

'Hold your tongue, Ida!' he said resolutely. 'If you won't speak, let Rose.'

'She did,' said Rose, in a low, anxious, terrified voice. 'I only heard it since I came home. She was married at the registrar's office to that man Jones, whom they call the Rattler, and went off with him. It must have been her whom I saw, really and truly; and, oh, Herbert, could she have been so wicked as to steal Master Michael!'

'Somebody else has been wicked then,' said Herbert, laying hold of his sister's arm.

'I don't know what all this means,' exclaimed Ida, in great agitation; 'nor what you and Rose are at! Making up such horrible, abominable insinuations against me, your poor sister! But Rose Rollstone always hated me!'

'She does not know what she is saying,' sighed Rose; and, with much delicacy, she moved away.

'Let me go, Herbert!' cried Ida, as she felt his grip on her hand.

'Not I, Ida--till you have answered me! Is this so--that Michael is not drowned, but carried off by that woman?' demanded Herbert, holding her fast and looking at her with manly gravity, not devoid of horror.

'He is a horrid little impostor, palmed off to keep you out of the t.i.tle and everything! That's why I did it!' sobbed Ida, trying to wrench herself away.

'Oh, you did it, did you? You confess that! And what have you done with him?'

'I tell you he is no Morton at all--just the nurse-woman's child, taken to spite you. I found it all out at--what's its name?--Botzen; only ma would not be convinced.'

'I should suppose not! To think that my uncle and aunt would do such a thing--why, I don't know whether it is not worse than stealing the child!'

'Herbert! Herbert! do you want to bring your sister to jail, talking in that way?'

'It is no more than you deserve. I _would_ bring you there if it is the only way to get back the child! I do not know what is bad enough for you. My poor uncle and aunt! To have brought such misery on them!' He clenched his hands as he spoke.