A burst of sobs from the agitated girl was her sole reply.
“Such a night! such a place!” he exclaimed, throwing his arm about Paula with a look that made her tremble through her tears. “Were you so anxious about me, little one?” he whispered. “Would not your fears let you rest?”
“No, no; and we have had such a dreadful time since we got here. The house where we expected to find you, is on fire, and we thought of nothing else but that you had perished within it. But finally someone told us to come here, and—” She paused horror-stricken; her eyes had just fallen upon the little dead child and the moaning mother.
“That is Jacqueline Japha,” whispered Mr. Sylvester. “We have found her, only to close her eyes, I fear.”
“Jacqueline Japha!” Paula’s hands unclosed from his arm.
“She was in the large tenement house that burned first; that is her child whose loss she is mourning.”
“Jacqueline Japha!” again fell with an indescribable tone from Paula’s lips. “And who is that?” she asked, turning and indicating the silent figure by the wall.
“That is Roger Holt, the man who should have been her husband.”
“Oh, I remember him,” she cried; “and her, I remember her, and the little child too. But,” she suddenly exclaimed, “she told me then that she was not his mother.”
“And she did not know that she was; the man had deceived her.”
With a quick thrill Paula bounded forward. “Jacqueline Japha,” she cried, falling with outstretched hands beside the poor creature; “thank God you are found at last!”