“Can it be!” he exclaimed aloud.
“Can it be what?” asked the mother, looking up at the young man for the first time, as she had been busily applying restoratives to her child and had forgotten everything else, whom she had never seen in this condition before. She noticed how thin and pale Nettie had grown lately, and it grieved her deeply.
When she looked at the stranger she turned as white as her daughter and sank on the floor by the side of the lounge.
“Sir, why did you come here? What have I done to be persecuted in this way,” she asked.
She was gazing wildly at him, and it troubled him very much.
“My dear madam, you are laboring under a great mistake, as there is a mystery here we must try to solve,” said the young man, taking the picture out of his pocket and handing it to her saying, “Madam, did you ever see this?”
She took it with trembling hands and opened it and exclaimed passionately, “Sir, where did you get this?”
“It was left in a little tin box for me by my mother,” answered Paul.
“How came she to have it? It was my picture I gave to a young man many years ago. It is the same one, as here is the lock of hair and the initials of my maiden name,” said the lady as she sat gazing at it earnestly and deeply thinking.
It brought back memories of the past.