given to her own child, all the repressed affection and buried
tenderness of heart were given to this little one. It was touching
pitiful, sad, to see how she worshiped her.

"What shall I do when the three years are over, and her father comes to
claim her?" she would say to the doctor. "I shall never be able to part
with her. Sometimes I think I shall run away with her and hide her."

How little she dreamed that there was a prophecy in the words!

"Her father has the first claim," said Dr. Letsom. "It may be hard for
us to lose her, but she belongs to him."

"He will never love her as I do," observed Margaret Dornham.

Of the real rank and position of that father she had not the faintest
suspicion. He had money, she knew; but that was all she knew--and money
to a woman whose heart hungers for love seems very little.

"There is something almost terrible in the love of that woman for that
child," thought the doctor. "She is good, earnest, tender, true, by
nature; but she is capable of anything for the little one's sake."

So the two years and a half passed, and the child, with her delicate,
marvelous grace, had become the very light of those two lonely lives. In
another six months they would have to lose her. Dr. Letsom knew very
well that if the earl were still living at the end of the three years
his son would tell him of his marriage.

On a bright, sunshiny day in June the doctor walked over to Ashwood. He