Mrs. Orme walked to the end of the room, lifted the curtain, and at a signal Regina joined her.  Clasping the girl’s fingers firmly she led her forward, and when to front of the old man, she exclaimed: 

“Rene Laurance, blood triumphs over malice, perjury, and bribery; whose is this child?  Is she Merle, Peterson, or Laurance?”

Standing before them, in a dress of some soft snowy shining fabric, neither silk nor crape, with white starry jasmines in her raven hair and upon her bosom, Regina seemed some angelic visitant sent to still the strife of human passions, so lovely and pure was her colourless face; and as General Laurance looked up at her, he rose suddenly.

“Pauline Laurance, my sister; the exact, the wonderful image!  Laurance, all Laurance, from head to foot.”

He dropped back into the chair, and smiled vacantly.

Cuthbert sprang forward, his face all aglow, his eyes radiant, and eloquent.

“Minnie, is this indeed our child? Your daughter—­and mine?”

He extended his arms, but she waved him back.

“Do not touch her!  How dare you?  This is my baby, my darling, my treasure.  This is the helpless little one, whose wails echoed in a hospital ward; who came into the world cursed with the likeness of her father.  This is the child you disowned, persecuted; this is the baby God gave to you and to me; but you forfeited your claim long years ago, and she has no father, only his name henceforth.  She is wholly, entirely her mother’s blue-eyed baby.  You have your Maud.”

As she spoke a wealth of proud tenderness shone in her eyes, which rested on the lily face of her child, and at that moment how she gloried in her perfect loveliness.

Her husband groaned, and clasped his hand over his face to conceal the agony that was intolerable, and in an instant, ere the mother could suspect or frustrate her design, the girl broke from her hand, sprang forward and threw herself on Cuthbert’s bosom, clasping her arms around his neck, and sobbing: 

“My father!  Take me just once to your heart!  Call me daughter; let me once in my life hear the blessed words from my own father’s lips!”

He strained her to his bosom, and kissed the pure face, while tears trickled over his cheeks and dripped down on hers.  Her mother made a step forward to snatch her back, but at sight of his tears, of the close embrace in which he held her, the wife turned away, unable to look upon the spectacle and preserve her composure.

A heavy fall startled all present, and a glance showed them General Laurance lying insensible on the carpet.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

In the clear, cold analytical light which the “Juventui Mundi” pours upon the nebulous realm of Hellenic lore and Heroic legend, we learn that Homer knew “no destiny fighting with the gods, or unless in the shape of death, defying them,”—­and that the “Nemesis often inaccurately rendered as revenge, was after all but self-judgment, or sense of moral law.”  Even in the dim Homeric dawn, Conscience found personification.