Dr. Severn had removed his own locket from his watch chain, and he now placed the two side by side on the table.
"You observe, Miss Kaye," he said, "that they are so exactly alike that it would be impossible to tell them apart, but when they are together you may notice that there is a slight difference in the characters which form the centre. To one unacquainted with Chinese it is perhaps hardly perceptible, but if you had any knowledge of the written language it could not fail to strike you. This, however, is only one of the minor points. I have still to make the great test."
He took his own locket in his hand and pressed a secret spring. It opened, disclosing inside a small coloured photograph of a lady with a sweet face and fair hair, at which he asked both Miss Kaye and Mercy to look carefully. He then lifted the other locket from the table.
"If, as I believe, this is the true duplicate," he said, "the spring will be here, and it will open like its fellow."
The three spectators held their breath. Sylvia was white as a ghost, and Miss Kaye put her arm round Mercy to prevent her from falling. One swift pressure of the doctor's thumb, and the charm had flown open, revealing an exact facsimile of the former portrait. Dr. Severn placed the pair side by side again upon the table and turned to Mercy.
"You did not know its secret?" he asked. "How could you when there was no one to show you the tiny catch? You have seen that the pictures in the two lockets are of the same person? In mine it is of my beloved wife, and in yours it is the portrait of your mother. Yes, Mercy, you are indeed my daughter, given back, as it seems to me, from the dead, and after all these years of our separation I claim you thus through the memory of one by whom we were both held equally dear!"
"So you're really Dr. Severn's own daughter! It's almost too nice to believe!" exclaimed Sylvia a few minutes later, when Mercy, with an April face, half-smiles and half-tears, kissed her and thanked her for her share in bringing about her new-found happiness.
"It is true nevertheless," replied Dr. Severn. "The locket has removed every shadow of doubt. There is still, however, a great deal to be explained, and with Miss Kaye's permission I will relate both how I lost my child and why I had apparently made no effort to recover her. It is a long story, but for a full understanding of the facts of the case it is necessary for me to begin at the beginning.
"It is now more than twenty years ago that, having obtained my degree as a doctor of medicine, and held appointments at various hospitals in London and the provinces, I determined to devote myself to the mission field, and sailed for China. I was appointed head of the medical mission at Tsi-chin in the canton of Szu-chwan, and on arrival there I bade goodbye to Western civilization. In those days the people of China were even more ignorant and fanatical than they are now. The prejudice against Europeans was intense, and for a long time our best efforts seemed thrown away. I should have been very disappointed and down-hearted if it had not been for the cheery hopeful courage of my wife, who had given up an easy life in England to help the cause, and whose work among the Chinese women was the beginning of the ultimate success which attended our mission.
"The very first to become a Christian was a woman named Lao-ya, and through her we found access to numerous houses, the doors of which had been formerly closed against us. Our small church began to grow. Many who came to the hospital as patients would listen to our story of the Great Physician, and tell it again in their own homes.