CHAPTER XXXVI.

UNFOLDINGS AND REVELATIONS.

Weeks passed away and Mrs. Belmont was able to sit for hours in her easy chair, but the once active, energetic and massive intellect was weak and inefficient as that of a child. The large eyes would follow the flitting forms about her with a weird wistful look, yet she seldom spoke, and when she did, the words revealed the sad truth that the powers that had long sat enthroned in the realm of reason ruled no more.

"I must go," Lillian said to her aunt one day, as they drew the invalid chair close to the window where a cool breeze from the Schuylkill could fan her pale face, and, as the words fell on the ears of Mrs. Belmont a quick flush overspread it. The daughter noticed the change with joy and a strange wondering. "Mrs. Jackson can do all that is needed to be done now," she continued, without removing her gaze from the placid features. "I will not be absent more than a week at most, and Pearl, you know, writes that if he can obtain leave for a few days will be here by my return."

"Pearl?"

"Yes, Mother; would you like to see him?"

There was a struggling among the buried memories which were not dead but sleeping, for the eyes gleamed with a new light, and the face resumed its look of intelligence. It was only for a moment, however, and then the former inertness returned, as she repeated, "Pearl!"

"He loves you, Mother; shall I read what he wrote last?" There was no response, and taking the letter from her pocket, she read slowly and distinctly. "She is our mother, Lillian, and, no matter what she has done, it is the duty of her children to forgive, and never refer to the past. I am anxious to meet her for her daughter's sake. My heart opens wide to take in her love and bury the whole hateful past. Whisper my name to her gently, familiarize her brain with associations concerning me."

"He is coming to see you, Mother, to love you; are you glad?"

"Forgive? Did he say forgive?"

"He certainly did, and he is true to his word. Shall I tell him to come?" The large eyes fixed intently on the beaming face before her, as if endeavoring to pierce the shadows.

After a moment's silence the mother slowly answered "Tell him come," and settled back in her chair wearied and exhausted.

Lillian was exuberant. "She is better," was her conclusion as she adjusted the pillows and brushed back the thin hair from the white temples. The heavy braids were gone, and the queenly bearing lost in helpless weakness.

It was finally concluded that Mrs. Hamilton should leave her mother in the care of the efficient nurse who had been in attendance during her long sickness, and, without speaking to her upon the subject, proceed on her journey to Boston, to return as soon as possible. Therefore on the following morning she started on her exciting mission. What a threefold cord was drawing her! The mother, to whose helplessness her filial love was clinging; the idolized husband for whom her heart was pining; and now the living tendrils of a buried affection had sprung up, and were twining themselves with an unseen power around the vibrating cord that bound her life to earthly loves and earthly hopes. The mother-love had awakened with its pleadings and would not be hushed. A little more than a year ago, and the brittle thread that held her was feeble, and the fibres frail; now other strands had been added, and as the car rolled over the space that separated her from the consummation of her long-cherished hopes she thanked God for the tender hand that had led her. The great joy, however, that would sweep over her soul, as she recalled the reasons of her present mission, was not without its gloomy apprehensions. What if, after all, Mrs. Gaylord's adopted daughter was not her Lily? How was she to be sure? and then the mother's ravings, her wild confessions; her cries of innocence; certainly these must have come from the hidden consciousness of an appalling truth! She sat by the open window and watched the receding fields, the trees and villages, as the train sped through them, with a sensation of alarm, for she realized that every puff of the tireless engine brought her nearer and nearer to the acme of her hopes or to disappointment.

How her limbs trembled when, on reaching Boston, she entered a carriage and gave orders to be driven to the Parker House! In Boston at last! In this boiling cauldron of living souls should she find her child? What a thought! What a hope! She must rest. Sleep alone could give her strength of body for the trying ordeal. She partook of a hasty lunch and retired to her room. What if Mrs. Gaylord had left the city. It had been so long since the boy had told her she was here. Here was a new agony! She had not thought of that; and ringing the bell asked for a directory.

Bowing, the servant turned to bring it.

"Stay, perhaps you can tell me how far it is to Mr. Bancroft's store."

"Peter Bancroft, ma'am?"

"I do not know."

"He is just one block away, ma'am: Shall we send your card?"

"Yes." She had not known before what were her wishes, and she wrote her address opposite her name and requested an interview. In a half hour the servant returned.

"Mr. Bancroft is in the parlor, ma'am, and will meet you there. Will you be kind enough to come immediately as his business is pressing?"

Lillian arose quickly and followed the servant.

"I beg your pardon for troubling you, but I am anxious to find a Mrs. Hudson Gaylord. Are you the Mr. Bancroft with whom she is acquainted?"

"O, yes, if you are her friend I rejoice to meet you"; and he extended his hand.

"I am not acquainted with her, but would like to learn if she has a young lady whom she claims as an adopted daughter?"

"Lily? Certainly! But they are not in the city." She started and he hurried to say: "She is only an hour's ride away. You can get to her before ten in the morning. There is a little hotel out in Kirkham where she has a fancy to spend her summers rather than at a fashionable watering place, and I believe it was in that vicinity where she found her two protegees. If I can assist you in any way I shall be happy to do so." He arose to depart. Lillian extended her hand; with many thanks and exchanging good-nights they separated, the merchant to forget perhaps the trifling incident in the press of business, the other to her lonely room and rest.

"Yes--I am glad," she thought as she closed and bolted the door; "she--my child--is not here and her mother has an hour's ride to get to her!" Peacefully she rested on the threshold of a new experience. Her heart throbbed wildly with hope and fear as it peered through at the coming possibilities, with new loves clamoring to be fed and old ones struggling for precedence, and yet she slept! The morning came and looked in through the narrow aperture of the closed shutters, but she did not wake. The gong sent its warning echoes up through the broad halls but she slept on. Eight o'clock and a loud knocking upon the door awoke her, and bounding from her bed she answered the summons.

"A gentleman in the parlor, ma'am, and wishes to see Mrs. Hamilton."

"In just one moment!" and she hurriedly made herself ready to meet her visitor.

"The train would leave for Kirkham in a half hour, and Mr. Bancroft would be happy to see her safely upon it." This was the word he sent her.

"Mrs. Hamilton is grateful and will be ready after a hasty cup of coffee."

So soon! The time had come but how strong she was! Not a tremor shook her frame; not an emotion quickened her pulse! Mr. Bancroft assisting her to a seat in the carriage, entered and took one beside her.

"We shall not be late? I slept so soundly. Really I forgot to wake this morning, and must thank you for reminding me of it."

Mrs. Hamilton laughed and Mr. Bancroft looked into the beaming eyes and thought "how like Lily Gaylord's they are!"

"You spoke last evening of two protegees?"

"Yes, a brother of the young lady--and a cripple."

"A brother, did you say?" and the heart of his listener gave a great bound of pain. The carriage suddenly wheeled up at the station, and "all aboard for the West" was shouted.

"This way Mrs. Hamilton," and her escort handed her into the car, and wishing her success waved his adieus as the train moved on.

"Her brother! Then she is not my child! Have I been led thus far only to find the fruit that allured me with its golden brightness nothing but ashes? Can it be?" With fearful apprehensions the hour flew by; the junction was reached at last.

It was a short ride to the hotel, and as she entered the spruce-looking village inn sensation of suffocation caused her to throw back her veil that she might breathe more freely.

"Is Mrs. Gaylord in?" she asked of a sweet-faced little woman who appeared.

"They have gone for their morning ride, but will be back in a half hour at most."

"I will take a room and wait their coming," was Lillian's response, and the hostess was ready to conduct her thither. It was a pleasant chamber overlooking the maple grove where the "lady from the south" had found so many cool breaths, and which now presented its most winning aspect to her who was gazing with anxious agitation into its shades. They had gone! In half an hour! Could she wait? And yet how she dreaded its passing! But the wings of time never cease their rapid motion, and before she had bathed her face or removed her bonnet a rap upon the door announced that her hour had come. Mrs. Gaylord was ready to receive her visitor.

"Will you ask her to grant me the favor to come to my room?"

This request was made with trembling voice, and the hostess wonderingly went with her message. Then a step was heard along the hall and the door again opened, and the same gentle voice to which she had twice listened announced "Mrs. Gaylord."

Lillian arose and the two ladies stood face to face with a world of hidden mysteries between them. Mrs. Gaylord extended her hand, and Lillian smiled as the door closed behind the retreating figure of the curious landlady.

"You are surprised at this intrusion from a stranger, but you will neither wonder or blame when you have listened to my story, and as it is a long one let us sit by the window."

Mrs. Gaylord affably obeyed.

"Have you a young lady with you; an adopted daughter, I believe?"

"Yes." The lady moved uneasily in her chair.

"Will you tell me what you know about her history?"

"She can do this better than I. Shall I call her?"

"No, no! I want to talk with you; but first answer this one question: Has she a brother?"

"A foster-brother as she calls the noble cripple, who is now with her in our private parlor."

A gleam of joy darted into her beautiful eyes at this clearing away of the shadows, and she proceeded.

"Another question; by what name was she called before you bestowed your own upon her?"

Her listener laughed. "In her years of babyhood she gloried in the appellation of 'Phebe Blunt,' and in six years or thereabouts this was changed to 'Phebe Evans'; at fourteen it was again changed to 'Lily Gaylord,' the one to which she will now answer."

"Why Lily?"

"Because of a little fanciful dream of her early childhood. She was born near the sea, and lived in a fisherman's cabin, but somehow learned that somebody had called her 'Lily Pearl,' and from this she drew the conclusion that a beautiful lady had picked her up off the waves where the pearls had thrown her."

The speaker looked up to behold the face of her listener as ashy pale as though the hand of death had chilled it with its icy touch, while the pallid lips were vainly endeavoring to speak; and, darting from her chair, Mrs. Gaylord exclaimed with alarm. "What is the matter with you? Are you dying?"

"No, no!" she answered feebly, as the reaction came and the blood rushed back to face and brow. "Not dying, but entering a double life. Mrs. Gaylord, your adopted daughter is my child! My Lily Pearl! Oh, how can I explain! How prove to you or her my assertion! How my heart has hungered and starved for the love my baby awoke in it! Seventeen years have I endured this thirsting which cruel hands imposed upon me. O, for strength to bear the change!" And she raised her clasped hands supplicatingly, while her companion looked on wonderingly.

"Let me explain," she added, and went on to tell as well as she could, without reflecting blame on the weak, helpless one far away, the story of her wrongs and years of suspicion.

"Is Mrs. Belmont, of Rosedale, your mother?" was the abrupt question that startled the narrator, and caused her folded hands to tremble under the soft pressure those of her interrogator placed on them.

"Yes; she is my mother, and is now in Philadelphia, a wreck of what she was when with you in Savannah."

"The mystery is explained, the problem solved! Lily, my Lily, is your child! I might have known such a blessing could not be retained by me. I am selfish, and, although I pity you, would rejoice at your continued thirst if the sweetest luxury my heart has ever known could have been spared to me. You have a husband to adore, a mother to forgive, a God your soul worships, while I am starving, with none of these things to satisfy my undying cravings. Is there no pity in your woman's heart for such as I?"

"Certainly. You have a husband, wealth and position. More than this, God waits for you. How then can you be so desolate?"

"Ask your daughter by and by why she never ceased to pine for the 'beautiful lady' that picked her up from off the sea where the pearls had thrown her? Did the bright picture that cast its glittering rays only on the surface of her unsatisfied heart feed or nourish the cravings of her growing love? Can such cold star-beams warm the frozen fountain? Do the fleshly ties of life unite the aspiring soul with its higher destinies? Love is the strong cord that draws us heavenward. Can woman with her immortality be happy when its drawings are all earthward? But I am troubling you with my individual perplexities when I ought to be lifting yours. I cannot, however, tell you how much anguish and desolation your story has thrown into my prospective future. I was lonely and sad, and she came to fill the void. I am childless, and her presence has satisfied my heart's longings. But it is over now. Come with me while with my own hand I tear the brightness out of my life. Come!"