The long table in the center of the library was strewn with large legal-looking documents, and beside it sat Mason North, his rotund body sagged in the chair, his good-natured face drawn and haggard. Opposite him stood Starr Wiley, his bruised lips twisted into a leer of triumph.
The girl looked gravely from one to the other and then turning to her cousin, waited submissively for him to speak.
"Willa, my dear——" he paused, clearing his throat nervously—"I have something to tell you which will be a painful shock to you. It has utterly unnerved me. I—I would not have dreamed that such an astounding discovery could come to pass and at this late date it is particularly distressing——"
"Better permit me to tell her, Ripley." Mason North rose heavily to his feet and stood with one pudgy hand braced upon the table as if for support. "The mistake was mine in too eagerly grasping the obvious as proof.—My dear Wil—my dear girl, I am profoundly grieved, but it has been brought to our attention that—that there are grave doubts as to your identity! In fact, belated but seemingly irrefutable documentary evidence appears to prove that you—you are not Willa Murdaugh!"
The girl stood like a statue, but from behind her Mrs. Halstead gasped convulsively, and there came a little squeal in Angie's treble tones.
"Sit down, my dear." Ripley Halstead drew forward a chair and Willa sank obediently into it, her eyes never leaving those of the attorney.
The others came in and seated themselves unbidden; all but Vernon. He took up his stand behind Willa's chair and for a moment his hand brushed her shoulder as if to assure her of his presence in case of need.
"It is only just that an immediate and detailed explanation be made to you," North continued. "I am sure it is unnecessary for me to express my regret and sympathy, but I want you to realize that I am as entirely at your service in every way as I was prior to this discovery.
"When I found you in Limasito and retraced your history from the time the man known as 'Gentleman Geoff' adopted you supposedly in Topaz Gulch, I overlooked one significant phase in his peregrinations. Willa Murdaugh's parentage and the circumstances of her birth were in every particular as I have told you; Ralph Murdaugh died when the baby was two years old, his wife lost her life in a fire two years later and the child was actually adopted by Gentleman Geoff and taken with him on his wanderings.
"Now it has transpired that the first heavy snow of the following winter caught him midway between two mining camps far up in the Rockies, near Flathead Lake, Montana. Does that name recall any memories to you?"