'I can remember!' she cried, springing up. 'Oh, I can remember!' She pressed her fingers to her cheeks, staring beyond the room into the past.
'Remember what, Simone dear?' said Marion in a trembling voice, forcing the girl gently into her chair.
Simone's low voice broke on a hysterical note. 'But,' she cried, 'I am not Simone. Did I not say I have just remembered? I have been trying all my life to remember. I am not Simone. I am Elise.'
Marion stepped back, her grey eyes wide. She looked appealingly at her aunt; but that lady, her gaze bent on Simone, appeared to be making a reckoning and a remembrance on her own account. Sampson still smiled from the window seat.
Marion looked again from Simone to the woman who stood, her mouth closed tight, by the door. What could have happened to affect Simone's mind thus?
'But,' she faltered, 'Elise is upstairs in her room. Are there two Elises?'
'I told my brother,' rang out Mistress Keziah's clear voice, 'I told my brother yonder girl was not a de Delauret. Had your nurse a child, my dear?' she asked, turning to Simone.
'Why, yes,' said Simone slowly. 'Let me see now. What was she called? Wait a minute. I have it! Suzanne Marie. We used to play together. How clear it is all growing!'
There was a curious pause. Marion stepped forward, a strange look on her colourless face.
'Then Suzanne Marie is upstairs,' triumphantly said Mistress Keziah. 'The whole thing is clear.'