“Then you cannot tell me,” I cried, cruelly disappointed.
“Oh, if I could—if I only could, all might yet end well with you, poor child. But there is no proof—I am not certain myself. How then will it be in my power to convince him? If you could but remember. You were six or seven years old when we found you, Zana, and at that age, a child has many memories—but you had none.”
“Yes, one—I remember her face.”
“But nothing more?”
“No, nothing. To attempt anything more wrenches all my faculties, and brings forth shadows only.”
“This is always the answer. What can I do?” muttered the old man, “resemblances are no proof, and I am not sure of that. Zana, have you the least idea how Lord Clare looks?”
“Yes,” I answered, “for I have seen his portrait.”
“There again,” muttered the old man—“there again, at every turn I am blocked out. But that other face, what is it like?”
“Dark, sad; great flashing eyes full of fire, but black as midnight; hair like the folds of a storm-cloud; a mouth—but how can I describe it, so full of tender sorrow, so tremulous? Tell me, is this like my mother? Was she thus, or not?”
“It is too vague, I cannot tell.”