“What is it?” asked Helen.
“I don't know that I ought to tell you about it just now,” said the other, “for it is a very sad story. But someone was here to see Arthur this morning—someone whom I never expected to see again in all my life.”
“To see Arthur?” echoed the girl in perplexity. “Who could want to see Arthur?” As her father went on she gave a great start.
“It was his mother,” said Mr. Davis.
And Helen stared at him, gasping for breath as she echoed the words, “His mother!”
“You may well be astonished,” said the clergyman. “But the woman proved beyond doubt that she was really the person who left Arthur with me.”
“You did not recognize her?”
“No, Helen; for it has been twenty-one or two years since I saw her, and she has changed very much since then. But she told me that in all that time she has never once lost sight of her boy, and has been watching all that he did.”
“Where has she been?”
“She did not tell me,” the other answered, “but I fancy in New York. The poor woman has lived a very dreadful life, a life of such wretched wickedness that we cannot even talk about it; I think I never heard of more cruel suffering. I was glad that you were not here to see her, or know about it until after she was gone; she said that she had come to see Arthur once, because she was going away to die.”