"Fate hastened and furthered my plans for departure. Made aware that
the Baroness was suspicious of my fault, and learning that my lover
was suddenly called to the bedside of his fiancee, I made my escape
from the town and left no trace behind. I went to that vast haystack
of lost needles--New York, and effaced Berene Dumont in Mrs Lamont.
The money left from my father's belongings I resolved to use in
cultivating my voice. I advertised for embroidery and fine sewing
also, and as I was an expert with the needle, I was able to support
myself and lay aside a little sum each week. I trimmed hats at a
small price, and added to my income in various manners, owing to my
French taste and my deft fingers.
"I was desolate, sad, lonely, but not despairing. What woman can
despair when she knows herself loved? To me that consciousness was a
far greater source of happiness than would have been the knowledge
that I was an empress, or the wife of a millionaire, envied by the
whole world. I believed my lover would find me in time, that we
should be reunited. I believed this until I saw the announcement of
his marriage in the press, and read that he and his bride had sailed
for an extended foreign tour; but with this stunning news, there came
to me the strange, sweet, startling consciousness that you, my
darling child, were coming to console me.
"I know that under the circumstances I ought to have been borne down
to the earth with a guilty shame; I ought to have considered you as a
punishment for my sin--and walked in the valley of humiliation and
despair.
"But I did not. I lived in a state of mental exaltation; every
thought was a prayer, every emotion was linked with religious
fervour. I was no longer alone or friendless, for I had you. I sang
as I had never sung, and one theatrical manager, who happened to call
upon my teacher during my lesson hour, offered me a position at a
good salary at once if I would accept.
"I could not accept, of course, knowing what the coming months were
to bring to me, but I took his card and promised to write him when I
was ready to take a position. You came into life in the depressing
atmosphere of a city hospital, my dear child, yet even there I was
not depressed, and your face wore a smile of joy the first time I
gazed upon it. So I named you Joy--and well have you worn the name.
My first sorrow was in being obliged to leave you; for I had to leave
you with those human angels, the sweet sisters of charity, while I
went forth to make a home for you. My voice, as is sometimes the
case, was richer, stronger and of greater compass after I had passed
through maternity. I accepted a position with a travelling
theatrical company, where I was to sing a solo in one act. My
success was not phenomenal, but it WAS success nevertheless. I
followed this life for three years, seeing you only at intervals.
Then the consciousness came to me that without long and profound
study I could never achieve more than a third-rate success in my
profession.