“Oh, I dare not ask, I hardly dare believe! It is so mysterious. She, yes, I will call her mother, though there might be a father somewhere. And was that beautiful woman they believed dying——”
Lilian clasped her hands over her eyes. Like a flash it seemed to pass before her. Zay Crawford’s double, some of the girls had called her.
“Oh,” she cried, “can I endure it? What if they do not want me?”
“If they had doubted the story it would have been kept from you. Can you guess—”
Lilian flung herself in Mrs. Barrington’s arms, with a long, dry sob.
“Oh, do not give me up,” she cried imploringly. “Let me stay with you. I will serve you faithfully for I love you, and these people are strangers——”
“Think, what it must be after her years of sorrow to clasp her child in her arms; to know that it had been well cared for, tenderly loved. Oh, she is your own mother and you will come to love her dearly. This morning Dr. Kendricks was to tell Major Crawford the story. Fifteen minutes ago word came that they would be here. Lilian, your father feels hard toward Mrs. Boyd. You know Dr. Kendricks would have recognized you if she had not taken you away, and it is only natural that he should feel indignant.”
“Must I see him before she—she cannot last long. Oh, she must not hear this, and I will not leave her until the very last.”
Then the child suggested her father.
“There they come,” exclaimed Mrs. Barrington.