“Mama, aren’t you going to speak to me?” and tears began to gather in the child’s eyes. Again Constance started, and her frame trembled, as her eyes rested on Dorothy. She raised her hands slowly and covered her face. Again she removed her hands and muttered: “It’s a spectre—a thing unreal which haunts me. Leave me. Pity me, oh, pity me, shade of my darling! You pain me! You make my heart ache! Go, go!”
Dorothy wept, and turning to Virginia, said: “Mama won’t kiss me, nor speak to me,” and the heartbroken child buried her head sobbing in the folds of Virginia’s dress.
Constance pressed her hand over her heart and muttered: “Oh, John, I have been faithful to you, yet you doubted me—spurned me on that dreadful night I found Dorothy! She is gone from me now—gone, gone, gone!” and she bent forward, covering her face with her hands, and sobbed bitterly.
“Thank heaven!” exclaimed Virginia, “reason’s floodgates have opened at last.”
Sam again turned away to wipe his eyes, saying, “I cannot think what makes my eyes so sore.”
And John Thorpe exclaimed, with trembling lips, “My God, have mercy! I cannot bear this!” And he, too, turned as though to walk away.
Mr. Harris held up a warning finger for him to stay.
“My poor mama!” and Dorothy again went close to her, comprehending in her childish way that her mother was sorely distressed. The sound of the child’s voice caught Constance’s attention. She lifted her head and fixed her eyes on Dorothy. Then she fell forward on her knees, stretched out her hands and murmured: “Not gone, still here!” She touched the child’s hands and uttered a low cry, continuing in quavering accents of fear, of hope, of joy:
“Solid flesh; warm, pulsating life!” and she gently clasped the child’s face between her two hands. “You cannot be a phantom! In the name of heaven, speak!”
“Indeed, mama, I am your own Dorothy. Aren’t you going to kiss me?” and the child again entwined her arms about her mother’s neck and looked into her eyes with a wistful appeal.