Abduction -- Fiction; Detective and mystery stories; New York (State) -- Fiction
"Perhaps some old servant can be found there to-day who could tell you
of the strange, deeply veiled lady who was found one evening at sunset,
clinging to the gate with both hands and sobbing as she looked in at the
triumphant little heiress racing up and down the walks with the great
mastiff, Don. They will say that it was some poor crazy woman, or some
mother who had buried her own little darling; but it was I, Marion, it
was I, looking upon the child I had sold for a half-year's independence;
I who was broken-hearted now for her smiles and touches and saw them all
given to strangers, who had made her a princess, but who could never
give her such love as I felt for her then in my madness. I went away
that time, but I came again soon with the titles of the adjoining
property in my pocket. I could not keep away from the sight of her, and
felt that the torture would be less to see her in your arms than not to
see her at all."
The answer was not audible, but I could well imagine what it was. As
every one knew, the false mother had not long held out against the
attractions of the true one. Instinct had drawn the little one to the
heart that beat responsive to its own.
What followed I could best judge from the frightened cry which the child
suddenly gave. She had evidently waked to find both women at her
bedside. Mrs. Carew's "Hush! hush!" did not answer this time; the child
was in a frenzy, and evidently turned from one to the other, sobbing out
alternately, "I will not be a girl again. I like my horse and going to
papa and sailing on the big ocean, in trousers and a little cap," and
the softer phrases she evidently felt better suited to Mrs. Ocumpaugh's
deep distress: "Don't feel bad, mamma, you shall come see me some time.
Papa will send for you. I am going to him." Then silence, then such a
struggle of woman-heart with woman-heart as I hope never to be witness
to again. Mrs. Ocumpaugh was pleading with Mrs. Carew, not for the
child, but for her life. Mr. Ocumpaugh would be in port the next
morning; if she could show him the child all would be well. Mr. Trevitt
would manage the details; take the credit of having found Gwendolen
somewhere in this great city, and that would insure him the reward and
them his silence. (I heard this.) There was no one else to fear. Doctor
Pool, the cause of all this misery, was dead; and in the future, her
heart being set to rest about her secret, she would be happier and make
the child happier, and they could enjoy her between them, and she would
be unselfish and let Gwendolen spend an hour or more every day with Mrs.
Carew, on some such plea as lessons in vocal-training and music.
Thus pleaded Mrs. Ocumpaugh.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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