vain," she thought, dreamily; "worse than vain those dreams now.
With my own hand I threw back the heart that loved me; of my own free
will I resigned the man I loved. And now the old love, that I thought
would die in the splendor of my new life, is stronger than ever--and it
is nine years too late."

She tried to wrench her thoughts away and fix them on her newspaper. In
vain! her eyes wandered aimlessly over the closely-printed columns--her
mind was in India with Captain Everard. All at once she started, uttered
a sudden, sharp cry, and grasped the paper with dilated eyes and
whitening cheeks. At the top of a column of "personal" advertisements
was one which her strained eyes literally devoured.

"If Mr. Vyking, who ten years ago left a male infant in charge of Mrs.
Martha Brand, wishes to keep that child out of the work-house, he will
call, within the next five days, at No. 17 Waddington Street, Lambeth."

Again and again, and again Lady Thetford read this apparently
uninteresting advertisement. Slowly the paper dropped into her lap, and
she sat staring blankly into the fire.

"At last!" she thought, "at last it has come. I fancied all danger was
over--that death, perhaps, had forestalled me; and now, after all these
years, I am summoned to keep my broken promise!"

The hue of death had settled on her face; she sat cold and rigid,
staring with that blank, fixed gaze into the fire. Ceaselessly beat the
rain; wilder grew the December day; steadily the moments wore on, and
still she sat in that fixed trance. The ormolu clock struck two--the
sound aroused her at last.

"I must!" she said, setting her teeth. "I will! My boy shall not lose
his birthright, come what may."

She rose and rang the bell--very pale, but quite calm. Her maid answered
the summons.

"Eliza," my lady asked, "at what hour does the afternoon train leave St.
Gosport for London?"

Eliza stared--did not know; but would ascertain. In five minutes she was
back.

"At half-past three, my lady; and another at seven."

Lady Thetford glanced at the clock--it was a quarter past two.

"Tell William to have the carriage at the door at a quarter-past three;
and do you pack my dressing-case, and the few things I shall need for
two or three days' absence. I am going to London."

Eliza stood for a moment quite petrified. In all the nine years of her
service under my lady, no such order as this had ever been received. To
go to London at a moment's notic