"My doll—my doll Estelle Brown. Why, my daddy gave her to me, of course. My father!"
"And what was your father's name?" asked Ruth in a tense voice.
She and Alice and the nurse leaned forward in eager expectation. They all recognized that a crisis was at hand. Would the stricken girl give an answer that would be a clue to her identity—the identity she had denied? Or would her words trail off into the meaningless babble of the afflicted?
"What is your father's name?" Ruth repeated.
The girl in the bed raised herself to a sitting position. She looked at the DeVere sisters—at the trained nurse. In her eyes now there was not so much brightness as there was weariness and pain.
And also there was more of the light of understanding. She looked from one to the other. Her lips moved, but no sound came from them. It was a tense moment. Would she be able to answer? Would the obviously injured brain be able to sift out the right reply from the mass of words that hitherto had been meaningless?
"What is your father's name?" repeated Ruth in calm, even tones. "Your father who gave you the doll, Estelle Brown? Who is he?"
Like a flash of lightning from the clear sky came the answer.
"Why, he is Daddy Passamore, of course!"
"Passamore!" gasped Alice. "Passamore?"