"Your poor mother was never the same again, and succumbed to the very
first trial that beset her after this. She died, while you were yet
struggling into existence. Heaven had pity upon her blighted life, and
called her from the world of shadows and sighs that encompassed her
round about. They repented--all of them--when repentance was only
remorse, and kissed her dead lips with a passionate pleading for
pardon, that was terrible to see.
"They christened you, calling you by her name, and Ernest Dalton was
asked to be your god-father: these were the only amends they were ever
able to make. I hope Heaven was merciful to them all, for they are
dead and gone now," Cousin Bessie added, wiping fresh tears of bitter
sadness from her eyes, "but it was a cruel wrong they did her--a
cruel, cruel wrong," she repeated, swaying herself to and fro, and
looking vacantly into the fire.
"And Ernest Dalton is my guardian, my god-father?" I said in a husky
whisper, leaning towards her.
"Yes dear, did he never tell you? He couldn't speak of your mother, I
suppose," she answered when I had shaken my head in a mute reply to
her question; "he couldn't, God help him. I heard he carries her
picture and his to this day, in a little locket on his watch-chain,
and that he lives in voluntary singleness, determined that no one
shall ever replace her in his love."
The tears were swimming in my eyes again: something throbbed and
burned within my head, and my heart lay full and heavy in my breast.
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