Page:The Father Confessor, Stories of Danger and Death.djvu/168

158 said to him. He dropped the crumpled rose-leaves on the floor, and, with a shrill cry, ran to Lady Osborne's side. "I cannot go with her! Oh! mother, don't send me away. I will be good, indeed, indeed!" He hid his face in her dress, and sobbed bitterly. Lady Osborne drew her gown from his hand. "You must go," she said; but the woman hurried to the door, as though she were frightened.

"No, no!" she said. And without another word, opened the door, and was gone.

Lady Osborne made a step to call her, then drew back, and sank into a chair. The child asked leave to go back to his play. Now that the woman had gone he felt no fear. The unusual occurrence meant nothing; to a child nothing is unusual or wonderful. But Lady Osborne lay back in her chair like one asleep, and did not heed him; so he went out to the garden, and she did not know. She was thinking in a dazed way that it was well the woman had left the child. She could not face the world and tell it this child she so loved and was so proud of was not her own—that she had been fooled and robbed all this time; that a dead child in some unknown grave was