Part 11

"I'll promise to do my best to keep him from--separating you--very far! If he remembers me," she added with sudden alarm! Such a thought had not occurred to her! Now it brought a tiny droop in the corner of her lips. "Anyway, Pat, much as we love Renee we must not forget that Capt. Allan has the first claim, though I am sure he will be anxious to do whatever will make her the most happy! He may let Renee decide."

"Oh, that would be _dreadful_!" cried Renee.

But the thought satisfied Pat. She stood up with sudden resolution. "Well, then, _I'm_ going to begin right now teasing Renee _every minute_ to choose us! I'm glad the letter came! Everything was so dull and now it's exciting again! And that poor Frenchman--let's go over to Peggy's, Ren, and tell her all about him! As if we minded rain, anyway!"

*CHAPTER XX*

*THE LOST BABY*

"Ren, you look as though you'd stepped out of a picture book!"

Renee did, indeed! With odds and ends from the scrap-bag and the store-room upstairs she and Pat had put together an Alsatian costume. Pat, perched cross-legged in the middle of the bed with a book on Historical Costumes stretched across her knees, proclaimed her satisfaction with their handiwork while Renee turned and turned before the long mirror, stopping to spread out the full short skirt or perk up the enormous bow that adorned her head.

Keineth Randolph was going to give a party. It was to be a costume party; there was to be dancing as well as games; all the boys and girls of the Randolph's acquaintance had been invited. They always loved to go to the Randolph's home; the house, though small, seemed to have been built for the sole purpose of giving young people room for a good time; John Randolph, himself, could be as young as the youngest and Keineth, always good-humored, was a hospitable little hostess. Add real musicians, tucked off on the landing of the stair, a table in the corner of the dining-room laden with goodies dear to young folks, witches and goblins, lords and ladies of past kingdoms, monks, fairies, clowns and elves to make merry--well, "it will be one grand party!" Pat had declared.

She herself had been torn in mind as to what she wanted to be. She pictured herself as Jeanne d'Arc, glorious in silver armor and lance in hand; she considered Mary, Queen of Scots; then her romantic fancy favored Cinderella! But learning from Peggy that Garrett was going as the brave Powhatan, the Indian Chief, she promptly decided to tease Garrett by appearing as Pocahontas! Aunt Pen was shopping at that very moment trying to find the gayest feather duster in the city with which to decorate her.

"Pat, I'll wear my locket!" cried Renee, turning from the mirror.

She ran to her drawer as she spoke and drew from it the little case. Pat watched her approvingly as she fastened the bright red band about her throat. It added a piquant spot of color to the quaint costume and the curious old locket looked as though it might have been fashioned by some old artisan for a royal lady in the days when feudal lords reigned over France!

"It's _perfect_!" Pat gave a leap over the low footboard of her bed to examine more closely Renee's entire appearance.

"You're going to be the best thing there," she declared conclusively. "I know everyone will be crazy over you! _Won't_ it be fun? I can't wait until Thursday comes! Only then it'll be over so soon!" And Pat sighed deeply, as millions of others have sighed over the rapid flight of time!

Maggie tapped at the door.

"There's a queer old woman downstairs a-asking for you, Miss Renee!"

"For me?" Renee turned, startled. Then a sudden thought enlightened her. "It must be Elsbeth!"

She ran quickly down the stairs to the door followed by Pat. It was Elsbeth, the queer old servant who lived with Mrs. Forrester. At sight of Renee she turned a face white with distress.

"Oh, Miss Renny, Miss Renny, she's took again! Mis' Lee sent me to fetch you! You must come!"

"What do you mean, Elsbeth--Mrs. Forrester? I'll go with you at once!"

"I think that's _mean_, Renee! We were going to plan my costume--you _know_ it!" protested Pat.

"Oh, _Pat_!" Renee's voice pleaded from the depths of the hall closet where she was hunting for her warm coat. "Oh, Pat--you wouldn't want me not to go! The poor thing!"

Pat was a little ashamed; however she did not want to show it--she cast an accusing look at old Elsbeth as though she was to blame.

"Well, I don't believe I'd leave you for any of the Kewpies, but I'll get along somehow!" and assuming the air of a martyr she started slowly back up the stairs.

"I'll get back as quickly as I can, truly, Patsy, so wait for me!" Pat paused in her ascent. "You're never going in _that_ costume, are you?"

Renee had completely forgotten what she had on! However, she only laughed and buttoned the coat up closely about her throat.

"Oh, it won't make any difference! I'm ready, Elsbeth--let's hurry!"

"She was took last night with one of her spells and cried and wouldn't take her powders! And to-day she's still like she was dead," the old servant explained to Renee as they almost ran through the streets. They made a curious pair--the young girl's scarlet skirts swinging out below the coat, the gilded cardboard with which she had covered her slippers flopping about her ankles and the ends of the big black bow peeping out from under the soft hat she had clapped upon her head; Elsbeth, hobbling in her effort to keep up with the younger feet, her loosened ends of stringy gray hair flying in every direction, and her hands rolled in the apron she tried vainly to conceal under the short, shabby jacket she wore.

"The Lord sent Mis' Lee," she gasped, panting for breath, "and she sez--go fetch Miss Renny! An' I come!"

"She'll be better, I know, with Mrs. Lee there! Don't worry, Elsbeth," and Renee, heedless of the panting breath beside her, quickened her pace so that in a very few minutes she was tapping at the door.

Mrs. Lee opened it and drew Renee into the dingy parlor. She went to one of the windows and raised the shade to the very top, letting in a flood of warm sunshine. Then she whispered to Renee:

"The doctor is with her now. It is the first time since I have known her that we could get her to see a doctor! Take off your coat, my dear! Oh----" she stared for a moment, puzzled, then laughed: "you were trying on your costume for Keineth's party! You are a picture, my dear!" She hesitated, as though something in Renee's face suddenly held her attention.

"Just for a moment you made me think of someone, but I can't tell who! Perhaps it is that you so thoroughly look the part of a little Maid of Alsace! I thought, while we were waiting, I might tell you a little more of poor Mrs. Forrester's story. Then you will understand why she suffers as she does! She was not always alone as she is now--she once had a beautiful young daughter----"

"Oh," broke in Renee, excitedly, "was that the lost baby?"

"Yes, though she was twenty years old! Now the mother always thinks of her as a baby."

"Did she die?"

"No--to Mrs. Forrester then it was worse than death. The two of them seemed to have been quite alone in the world; the mother cared for nothing but the little girl. Every luxury that money could buy she heaped upon her with a lavish hand. One might think that the child would have been dreadfully spoiled but those who knew them say she was sweet and gentle, pretty as a flower. When she was a little older the mother took her away--she must have the best schooling that money could obtain. They traveled a great deal, too. And all the while, as the young girl grew toward womanhood, the proud mother was building plans for the wonderful future her child must have! I do not know of just what greatness she dreamed--whether it was of some Duchess Somebody or even a prince's title--I only know that she held money and high social position as the greatest gifts with which a Kindly Providence could endow her flower and lost sight of what makes real happiness in this world!

"It sounds like a fairy tale, my dear! While the proud mother was dreaming her golden dreams, the young girl met and fell in love with a poor artist--a boy, for he was only twenty-two, whose family was quite unknown and who had nothing in the wide world but a profound belief in his own great talent. The young girl went proudly and joyously with him to the mother to tell of their happiness. The mother would only believe that the boy was an adventurer--a fortune seeker; she saw an end to the plans of her whole lifetime, an obscure future for the girl she had so carefully educated. She sent the young man away and forbade his communicating in any way with her daughter. For weeks the girl pleaded vainly, the mother would not listen; in a fury of disappointment she even locked her for days in her room, thinking to break the young will! But there is an old saying that true love will find a way--the day came when the young girl slipped away, joined her lover and a few hours later returned to tell the mother that they had been married. Then it was that anger and baffled pride drove out all love and justice from the mother's heart; heaping curses upon the frightened girl she drove her from her, bidding her never cross her path again! The girl and boy went away and from that day to this the unhappy woman has never laid eyes upon them. Her rage brought about a spell not unlike what she is having now; for days and days she lay in her bed refusing to let anyone near her. Then, finally, as the weeks grew into months, slowly into her heart crept the realization of what she had done. Remorse began eating at her soul. She tried vainly to find some trace of the daughter; with only Elsbeth she wandered for month after month over every country of the globe, seeking everywhere! She spent almost a fortune on her search. But there was never a sign. It was as if the world had swallowed them. And, finally, broken by her sorrow, unhappy and discouraged, without any friends and with only a little of her former wealth left, she came back to this city and to this old house. It looked then just the way it does now. She threw out anything in it that might make it even a little cheerful and then settled down to die! But life, cruelly enough, has hung on and on! I have learned her story from things she has told me; for some strange reason she has seemed to want to confide in me. And Elsbeth, too, has sometimes softened a little and talked about the old days! That is her sad story, my dear! I know, now, how tender you will always be with her and I have often thought that perhaps you may remind her--a little--of the--lost baby, because you are young and like a flower, too!"

Two bright spots of color burned in Renee's cheeks. To herself she was saying: "_Wait_ until I tell Pat!" The thrill of the secret of the lost baby held her more than any sympathy for the old lady; perhaps deep in her heart some sense of justice told her that the proud mother had had just the punishment she deserved.

Mrs. Lee had turned toward the door. "The doctor is going! Wait here, Renee, until I call you. He may have some directions to give."

Renee looked about the room. What a horrible place! Even the gold of the sunlight dimmed to a cold lustre as it lay across the dusty surface of the shabby furniture! Everything was so unspeakably ugly and so still! She suddenly felt very lonely. A moment's wild impulse tempted her to run back to Pat as fast as her feet could fly! They had been having such fun fixing the costumes; the pink-curtained room had been so cheery, Peter Pan had been singing so lustily--why should she stay here?

Except for the low murmur of voices from the hall where Mrs. Lee was talking to the doctor, the only sound to break the awful stillness was the loud ticking of old Elsbeth's clock in the kitchen. It had a mournfully resentful tick as much as to say to its unhappy listeners: "No matter how wretched you feel, I go on--I go on--I go on!"

The door going into the room where Mrs. Forrester lay was closed. As she thought of crossing its threshold little Renee shuddered. A fear she could not explain gripped her! After all, she was only a little girl; she had never seen anyone suffer--except Gabriel when he was tortured with his rheumatism; she had never seen anyone die--her own dear mother had seemed to just go to sleep! And what if Mrs. Forrester should die? If she wanted to go back home, surely Mrs. Lee would let her go!

And then, as she waited, bits of the story Mrs. Lee had told her flashed back across her thoughts and held her. Now her sympathy was not so much for the girl bride as for the poor, lonely mother, wandering broken-hearted, over the world!

"The poor thing!" she said aloud, and then jumped at the sound of her own voice.

A door closed behind the doctor; Mrs. Lee came into the room.

"She is quiet now. The doctor says there is no danger. It is all her nerves. Only--women her age can't indulge in hysterics without serious results! What a picture you are in all this gloom, child! It's a strange coincidence that you should have had this dress on! Perhaps it will rouse her."

Somehow, now, Renee did not feel a bit like asking to go home. She was not even very much afraid. With Mrs. Lee she stepped softly down the dim hall toward the closed door.

"Anything, Renee, that will make her forget herself will help her," whispered Mrs. Lee. "Tell her about Keineth's party--anything!" They walked into the room. The doctor had raised one of the cracked shades so that the sun was slanting in. Mrs. Lee had put some extra pillows under the patient's head; she was half-sitting, a pathetically little figure in the great ugly bed. Her face was turned toward the wall. She lay perfectly still; Renee might have thought that, like her mother, she was sleeping, except that her thin fingers twitched at the edge of the bedspread.

"I have brought Renee," Mrs. Lee said softly.

There was no answer.

"Perhaps you would like to have her stay with you for a little while!"

"Oh--go away--_all_ of you!" came pettishly. "Can't you let an old woman die in peace? Will it ever come?" she moaned into her pillow.

Renee felt so indignant that anyone should be praying like this to die that she stepped to the side of the bed.

"But the doctor says you are _not_ going to die," she answered quickly, with a stubborn note in her sweet voice.

The moment she had spoken she was very frightened but she could not have said anything that would have so quickly roused the old lady. It roused her because it angered her; she jerked her head around. However, what she might have retorted in answer was checked by her utter amazement at seeing the strange, quaint little figure by her bedside.

"Who are you?" she demanded angrily. "Who let you in here?"

The child stepped closer. "I'm Renee!" she answered gently.

"You that little Renee? Come here!" Mrs. Forrester commanded stretching out a thin hand.

Renee stepped close to the head of the bed and leaned over. Mrs. Forrester touched her cheek and her hair.

"So it is! So it is!" and her voice softened. Then a gleam of sunlight from the unshaded window struck across the curious old locket. Suddenly the sick woman sat bolt upright in bed and clutched with both hands at the red band.

"_That--that----_" she screamed. "Where did you get it?" She tore at the velvet band until it hurt Renee cruelly. Her voice rose to a shriek. "_It is hers! My baby!_"

As her fingers fumbled over the face of the locket a part of it suddenly opened and from a hiding place within dropped a tiny gold key! The old lady cried loudly and held it up.

"_I knew it! I knew it!_" Then she sank back among the pillows, turned slowly to Renee and whispered hoarsely:

"But who are you?"

*CHAPTER XXI*

*RENEE'S BOX*

"Who are you?"

Of course they all thought Mrs. Forrester was having a spell! Renee was terribly frightened--the more so because now one of the thin hands was gripping her arm so that it hurt.

Elsbeth, more wild and disheveled than ever, pushed at Renee and leaned over the bed, a tumbler in one hand, some powders in the other.

"Mis' Forrester! _Please_, Mis' Forrester!" she pleaded, tears running down her wrinkled cheeks.

But Mrs. Forrester struck angrily at the hand holding the powders and sent them in a tiny cloud of dust all over the covers.

"Go away, you old fool!" she cried, "can't you see I've found my baby? No one else anywhere in the world had a locket like that!"

Mrs. Lee suddenly remembered who it was that Renee had looked like! It was the faded picture Elsbeth had once shown her of the young daughter of Mrs. Forrester! She stepped forward now and answered for Renee.

"She is Renee LaDue, but I think--I believe--she _must_ be your grandchild!"

Mrs. Forrester was sitting bolt upright and the pillows had fallen all about her. Two bright spots of red burned on her cheeks and her eyes, as they stared through and through Renee, were alight with life. She was a different creature from the one who had lain limply on the ugly bed, her face turned toward the wall! Only her voice still sounded weak and shrill.

"Your mother--answer, child!"

Then, more than anything else in the world, Renee wanted to run away! But the hand on her arm held her tight. And, too, who was this old lady who had known that the key was in the locket when she and Emile had not known it?

"My mother's name was Amy----"

"My baby!" Now the old lady sank back among the pillows; she commenced to sob--dry, heart-breaking sobs, "My baby! You are her little girl! I have found her!"

And then a strange thing happened! For suddenly Renee lost all her fear and over her swept a joy that she had found someone--someone to really, truly belong to! So very shyly she reached out and took one of the thin hands in her own.

Mrs. Lee gently told the old woman as much of Renee as she knew; how the mother had died five years before, how she had made the brother promise to some day bring the little girl back to America to live, how the brother had given his life for France, the country of his mother's adoption, and an American officer had fulfilled the promise. As she listened Mrs. Forrester kept her eyes fastened on Renee's face and Renee held tightly to the trembling hand.

When Mrs. Lee had finished Mrs. Forrester lay still for a long time. Then she said softly: "God has been good to a wicked old woman because my flower had gone to Heaven and pleaded for me! I am forgiven." And she closed her eyes as though at last a peace of soul had come upon her!

"Is--is the key--a key to a box?" Renee asked.

Her grandmother roused suddenly.

"Yes--yes! A leather box--have you got it? My grandmother gave it to my darling--with the locket--when she was fifteen."

"My mother gave it to Emile just before--she died! She never told him about the key but she made him promise to let no one break it open. And of course we never would!"

"Shall I go and get it?" asked Mrs. Lee. She felt that for a little while it might be better to leave the old lady and the child alone. Renee made a move as though to go, too, but Mrs. Lee motioned her back.

"Aunt Pen will tell me where I can find it! You stay here, my dear," and she hurried away.

Elsbeth had been watching the unusual happenings with a suspicious, jealous eye. She loved her strange old mistress better than anything on earth; she resented these strangers usurping her place!

"Missus had best lay down now and keep quiet," she said, coming forward with an authoritative air. "If ye'll jes' take a powder----" But she got no further; Mrs. Forrester burst into a laugh! And Elsbeth was so startled that her knees knocked together, for, not for many years, had she heard her mistress laugh--and such a laugh!

"Elsbeth, stupid, can't you see I'm a well woman? That I am happy again? None of your powders any more! Go about your business--ransack your pantry and find some food for my pretty one here! My flower--my baby!" And with a look that transformed her thin face she lifted her arms and closed them about little Renee.

"Tell me," she whispered, as though it must be a secret between them, "was she ever unhappy?"

Renee answered very slowly because she was thinking very hard. She tried to make the mother know that her own dear mother had been always cheerful, always singing and telling beautiful stories and playing with her among the flowers--and was only unhappy when Emile brought out the father's tools.

"That was because he had been blind, and I heard her tell Emile once that his heart had broken because he could not do his work! For a long time she guided his fingers for him! She herself used to take the things they made to Paris to sell, and, when she couldn't sell them, she and Susette used to hide them so he couldn't know--Susette told me all that! I think we were very, very poor, but my mother always seemed happy. She used to sew sometimes, until she was very tired. We never had anything but the flowers to play with and the games she used to make up. And she always talked of the time when she would bring us both to America! 'It was my country and it must be yours,' she used to tell us over and over!"

"Did she--did she--ever tell you--about me?"

Renee hesitated. She knew that what she must say would hurt the old lady deeply. But before she could speak Mrs. Forrester answered herself.

"Of course she would not! I had forbidden it!" and in her voice was the bitterness of remorse.

Then Renee told her of the cottage at St. Cloud where, since as far back as she could remember, they had lived with Susette and Gabriel. She told, too, of Emile and the days when he had gone to Paris to study with an old sculptor, and how bravely he had gone away to war with a company from St. Cloud!

Mrs. Forrester pushed Renee's hair back and looked intently at her.

"I can see it now! You are like her--a little! But your eyes are like--your father's."

There were voices in the hall and in a moment Mrs. Lee and Aunt Pen walked into the room. Aunt Pen was greatly excited and came straight to Renee.

"I am so glad, my dear," she whispered.

But no one had eyes for anything but the queer old box which Mrs. Lee had placed upon the bed.

"How old it looks," sighed Mrs. Forrester, caressing for a moment the worn leather. Her fingers trembled so that she could not hold the tiny key and it was Renee who fitted it into the lock and turned it. It turned slowly and the lid fell back, revealing packages of papers and letters, tied neatly together.

Although not knowing exactly what she had always imagined was in the box, Renee was vaguely disappointed! But Mrs. Forrester fell to eagerly sorting over the packages. Lying loose among them was a folded sheet, addressed to herself.

"Her writing!" she cried, holding it close to her eyes. "Read it for me--I cannot."

"Dearest of mothers," Renee read. The writing showed that the letter had been written under stress of deep emotion. "It was only because he needed me so much, for the doctors had told him his eyesight was slowly going, that I could hurt you by acting against your wishes. And sometime you may know that I have always loved you dearly and that I forgive you as I pray you will forgive me."

"Oh, my darling," and a flood of tears dropped on the sheet of paper. "It is as though she was speaking to me!" she whispered, kissing the lines. And indeed a great stillness held the room as though each of those in it felt, too, the spirit of Renee's young mother among them!

Mrs. Forrester, her eyes still dim with tears, spread out the other papers and she and Mrs. Lee and Aunt Pen fell to examining them, while Renee watched, feeling as though it was all a dream.