“She was my mother,” Lyle said simply. She could say nothing more, the walls of the little room seemed to be whirling rapidly about her, and she could see nothing distinctly.
Faintly, as though sounding far in the distance, she heard Houston’s voice as he exclaimed:
“Can it be possible? and yet, you resemble her! Why have I never thought of it before? She had a little daughter Marjorie, whom we always supposed was killed in the wreck in which her own life was lost.”
“And this,” said Lyle, holding out the letter, but speaking with great effort, for the room was growing very dark, and a strange numbness seemed stealing over heart and brain, “this tells that I was stolen from the side of my dead mother who was killed in a wreck––” She could get no farther, and she knew nothing of his reply. A thick darkness seemed to envelop her, fast shutting out all sense even of life itself. There was a sound for an instant like the deafening roar of waters surging about her, and then she seemed sinking down, down into infinite depths, until she lost all consciousness. For the first time in her life she had fainted.
Houston caught her as she was falling, and a moment later the little group outside were startled by his sudden appearance.
“Leslie,” he said, in quick, low tones, “you and Morton come to my room. Lyle has fainted.”
“What is the trouble, Everard?” asked Ned, springing to his feet. “Anything serious?”
“I think not,” was Houston’s reply. “Her fainting was the result of over-excitement. Come into my room, Ned, when she has revived, I think I have made a discovery in which we will all be interested.”
When he returned Lyle was beginning to revive, though unable to speak, and leaving her in the care of Leslie and Morton for a few moments, Houston hastily scanned the letter which Lyle had given him, soon reading enough of its contents here and there to get a correct idea of the whole.
Both Miss Gladden and Morton Rutherford realized that something had transpired out of the usual order of events. Each believed it connected with some discovery relating to Lyle’s early history, but of what nature the discovery might be they had no clue.