But
it cannot be. Something terrible has come between us."
"Tell me what it is. Let me share your sorrow," he said; but Maggie
only answered: "Not yet, not yet! Let me live where you are a little
longer. Then I will tell you all, and go away forever."
This was all the satisfaction he could obtain; but after a time she
promised that if he would not mention the subject to her until the
first of June, she would then tell him everything; and satisfied
with a promise which he knew would be kept, Mr. Carrollton waited
impatiently for the appointed time, while Maggie, too, counted each
sun as it rose and set, bringing nearer and nearer a trial she so much
dreaded.
CHAPTER XX.
THE RESULT.
Two days only remained ere the first of June, and in the solitude of
her chamber Maggie was weeping bitterly. "How can I tell them who I
am?" she thought. "How bear their pitying scorn, when they learn that
she whom they call Maggie Miller has no right to that name?--that
Hagar Warren's blood is flowing in her veins?--and Madam Conway thinks
so much of that! Oh, why was Hagar left to do me this great wrong? why
did she take me from the pine-board cradle where she says I lay, and
make me what I was not born to be?" and, falling on her knees, the
wretched girl prayed that it might prove a dream from which she would
ere long awake.
Alas for thee, poor Maggie Miller! It is not a dream, but a stern
reality; and you who oft have spurned at birth and family, why
murmur now when both are taken from you? Are you not still the
same,--beautiful,--accomplished, and refined,--and can you ask for
more? Strange that theory and practice so seldom should accord.
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