"'Good-bye, Doctor Bryan. Never forget your poor, heart-broken
Alice.'
"I searched for her night and day," repeated the old man, with a sob in his voice. "Alice died at sea, and the fate of the little one could not be learned, nor that of the father. I never ceased searching until the last year. Then I said to myself, 'It is useless—useless. Alice's baby is dead.' But I have found her most miraculously at last, thank God!"
This revelation created the most intense excitement among the women, who had listened breathlessly to the dénouement.
He had scarcely ceased speaking ere Dorothy opened her eyes. She found to her great consternation a crowd surrounding her.
But in an instant memory returned to her, and with a startled cry she struggled up to a sitting posture, gazing in blank bewilderment upon the crowd that had gathered about her.
"I—I fainted and fell backward," she began; but the old gentleman bent quickly over her, interrupting, hastily:
"Yes, you fell backward and down into the water, my child, and came near drowning. Where is the young man who saved her?" he cried. "Will some one fetch him here at once to me, so that I may thank him? Oh, child, child!" he cried, again bending over Dorothy, "I would have recognized you among ten thousand! You look at me with your mother's eyes!"
"My mother?" cried Dorothy, in awe, thinking that she had not heard aright, or that the gentleman had mistaken her for some one else. "I—I am an orphan; my name is Dorothy Glenn."
The old gentleman did not utter the words that sprang to his lips when she mentioned the name Glenn, though his face darkened for an instant with bitter memory.