"It is not an easy task to confess how bad one has been," the stranger
said, "and once no power could have tempted me to do it; but several
years of prison life have taught me some wholesome lessons, and I am not
the same man I was when, Densie Densmore"--and his glance turned toward
her--"when I met you, and won your love. Against you first I sinned. You
are my oldest victim, and it's meet I should begin with you."
"Yes, with me--me first, and tell me quick of my stolen baby," she
faintly moaned.
Her ferocity of manner all was gone, and the poor, white-haired creature
sat quietly where Alice had put her, while the story proceeded: "You know, Densie, but these do not, how I won your love with promises
of marriage, and then deserted you just when you needed me most. I had
found new prey by that time--was on the eve of marriage with one who was
too good for me. I left you and married Mrs. Eliza Worthington. I--"
The story was interrupted at this point by a cry from 'Lina, who moaned: "No, no, oh no! He is not my father; is he, Hugh? Tell me no. John, Dr.
Richards, pray look at me and say it's all a dream, a dreadful dream!
Oh, Hugh!" and to the brother, scorned so often, poor 'Lina turned for
sympathy, while the stranger continued: "It would be useless for me to say now that I loved her, Eliza, but I
did, and when I heard soon after my marriage that I was a father, I
said: 'Densie will never rest now until she finds me, and she must not
come between me and Eliza," so I feigned an excuse and left my new wife
for a few weeks. Eliza, you remember I said I had business in New York,
and so I had. I went to Densie Densmore. I professed sorrow for the
past. I made her believe me, and then laid a most diabolical plan. Money
will do anything, and I had more than people supposed. I had a mother,
too, at that time, a woman old and infirm, and good, even if I was her
son. To her I went with a tale, half false, half true. There was a
little child, I said, a little girl, whose mother was not my wife. I
would have made her so, I said, but she died at the child's birth. Would
my mother take that baby for my sake? She did not refuse, so I named a
day when I would bring it. 'Twas that day, Densie, when I took you to
the museum, and on pretense of a little business I must transact at a
house in Park Row, I left you for an hour, but never went back again."