It was all over. Fair’s tortured mother had found rest in the grave, and the unhappy daughter had gone home with Sadie Allen to live, scorning the offer that had come to her in a letter from George Lorraine to forgive and forget, and let him take her to a home, where he would work for her most faithfully.

The beautiful red lips curled in bitter scorn.

“Sadie, look at me, and think of it,” she said disdainfully: “The wife of an Italian organ grinder, following him, with his monkey, perhaps, around the streets, singing for a few pennies!”

“He is not an organ grinder. That was a falsehood of Belva’s,” said Sadie. “I have taken pains to inquire, and I find that his real name is Carl Bernicci, and that he keeps a little fruit-and-confectionery stand near a wharf. His father was an organ grinder, and a real Italian, but he married an American wife—the mother of Carl, who,[Pg 88] it seems, has been rather wild, and once got in some scrape in which Belva got him in her power, hence her plot by which she avenged herself on your pretty face. But the strangest part of my story is yet to come, my dear. Prepare to be surprised.”

[Pg 88]

“If it is anything concerning George Lorraine, or Carl Bernicci, as I believe you said his name was, I should not be surprised at anything,” Fair replied disdainfully.

“Ah, you don’t know,” said Sadie, smiling roguishly, and thinking that her news might divert Fair’s mind from brooding over her lost mother, she continued: “Well, then, they say that old Bernicci, the organ grinder—Carl’s father, you know—was actually a prince in his own land—a poor prince, you know, without a penny in his purse, or a foot of land to his name. His prodigal father had squandered everything, you see, and the boy prince, disgusted, fled to America, where he could earn his living without disgracing his titled ancestry. Now, what have you to say to that?”

Fair shook her head wearily, and answered:

“Nothing, except that I hate and scorn him,[Pg 89] and should feel the same hatred and scorn for him if he were a king.”

[Pg 89]

And to her own heart she said bitterly, and wrote the same thing in her journal that night:

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