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Updated: June 20, 2025
My dear child, you must try to forget this unhappy past, and let me atone to you for it. I cannot endure to think that my daughter and heiress, Lady Madaline Charlewood, should have spent her youth under so terrible a cloud."
She could not account for the impulse that led her to watch him so closely, while she wondered what the papers could be worth. Then both gentlemen turned their attention from the box to the child. Lord Charlewood would be leaving directly, and it would be the last time that he, at least, could see the little one.
"You understand me," said Lord Charlewood. "You have lived here so long that you know the place and every one in it, I have been thinking so much of my little one. It would be absurd for me to take her to Italy; and as, for my father's sake, I intend to keep my marriage a secret for some time longer, I cannot send her to any of my own relatives or friends.
So through the silent hours of the day Lord Charlewood slept, and the story spread from house to house, until the little town rang with it the story of the travelers, the young husband and wife, who, finding no room at the hotel, had gone to the doctors, where the poor lady had died.
"I will take you to her, sir," was the reply "at once, if you will go." "I will not lose a minute," said the earl, hastily. "It is time, Mrs. Dornham, that you knew my name, and my daughter's also. I am the Earl of Mountdean, and she is Lady Madaline Charlewood." On hearing this, Margaret Dornham was more frightened than ever. She rose from her knees and stood before him.
I think do not laugh at me, my son I think yours is perfect manhood; you please me infinitely." Lord Charlewood smiled at the simple, loving praise. "I have a woman's pride in your handsome face and tall, stately figure. How glad I am, my son, that no cloud has ever come between us! You have been the best of sons to me.
Knowing this Lord Charlewood did not dare to tell his secret; it would have been plunging his father into danger uselessly; besides which the telling of it was useless now his beautiful wife was dead, and the child too young to be recognized or made of consequence. So he devoted himself to the earl, having decided in his own mind what steps to take.
"How little I thought," he said, "that I should leave my dead wife and living child here! It was a town so strange to me that I hardly even knew its name." On arriving at his destination, to his great joy, and somewhat to his surprise, Lord Charlewood found that his father was better; he had been afraid of finding him dead.
What of little Madaline, the child who had her dead mother's large blue eyes and golden hair? Again Lord Charlewood and the doctor sat in solemn conclave; this time the fate of the little one hung in the balance. Lord Charlewood said that if he found his father still weak and ill, he should keep the secret of his marriage.
If it were known that such an incident as this had happened to me, the papers would be filled with it; and it might fall out that my father, the earl, would come to know of it before I myself could tell him. We had better take all proper precautions against such a thing. I should prefer that we be known here only as Mr. and Mrs. Charlewood.
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