"It means she isn't Mrs. Orme, anyhow," answered Josie, in a disappointed tone.
Mary Louise considered this in her usual careful way. She would like to help Josie, if she could.
"Who do you suppose this Mrs. Orme could be?" she presently asked.
"Some one whom Alora knew years ago, when her mother was alive. Of course her name may not have been Orme, then, and she may not have been a trained nurse. That's why I was inclined to connect her with Gorham."
"Wait a minute, Josie! A nurse, do you say? Why, I remember something about a nurse, no—Alora's mother's nurse. When we were in Italy, where I first knew Alora, she told me that her father, at one time when they lived in New York, had been forced to give money to a woman, and Alora believed he had left America to escape this person's further demands. When I asked who the woman was, she said it was her mother's nurse; but I'm pretty sure she didn't mention her name."
Josie's freckled face now wore a broad smile.
"How simple any enigma proves when you have the key," she remarked, with an air of relief. "The mystery is solved, my dear! It's all as easy as A. B. C."
"In that case," said Mary Louise, more mystified than ever, "kindly oblige me with the key."
"With pleasure. You haven't given me much time to forge a chain, so I'll add each link as it occurs to me. Mrs. Jones, during her last illness, had a nurse; a good nurse, too, in whom she had confidence. When Mrs. Jones sent for her husband, from whom she had been estranged, the nurse was aware of the action. When the husband came—Alora's father—without doubt the nurse remained in the sick room during the interview. Husband and wife quarreled, instead of making up—this guess is justified by the man's disagreeable disposition—and Mrs. Jones hastily wrote a codicil to her will and gave it into the nurse's keeping, with instructions to deliver it to her lawyer. Then the poor lady over-excited, lay back and died, and the man Jason Jones—realized that his lack of diplomacy had euchred him out of a big income for seven years. But he put up a job with the nurse who held his fate in her hands in the shape of scrap of paper. If she'd give him that codicil—no! that isn't right—if she'd keep it to herself and not let anyone know of its existence, Mr. Jones proposed to give her a share of the money. She considered this easier than working and the bargain was struck. Isn't that a logical chain of events, so far, Mary Louise?"
"But what a terrible thing to do, Josie!"