Kenneth's voice trembled with agitation as he asked the question.
She bowed assent, her face still hidden in her hands. But suddenly dropping them she gazed eagerly, searchingly, into his face.
"And you, you who look so like the dead, who are you?"
"One of those babes born on that terrible day," he answered with emotion; "which, I do not know; and that is what I have hoped even against hope, that you could tell me. You laid us down together, you remember, and to this day the question remains unsolved which was the uncle and which the nephew. Did you observe any mark upon either, anything at all to distinguish him from the other?"
Clendenin was greatly agitated as he put this question, and his breathing was almost suspended as he waited for the reply.
"Yes," she said; "one had a very peculiar mark on his breast. I was sort o' expecting it, and looked for it right away."
"What was it, and on which child?" he asked with the tone and manner of one to whom the answer must bring life or death.
"Wait," she said, "let me tell it in my own way. Clark he'd been a cabin boy aboard a ship, and an old sailor had tattooed an anchor on his arm. 'Twas fur up above his elbow, and didn't show except he took pains to roll his sleeve up a-purpose."
She spoke hesitatingly, as one who had half forgotten the use of her mother tongue, and to Clendenin the suspense was agony well nigh unendurable; but by a strong effort he kept himself quiet.
"Well," she continued, "the oldest Mrs. Clendenin was over to our house not a week afore that awful day, and Clark he showed her that mark on to his arm, and I saw that she turned kind o' sick and faint at the sight, and then quick as thought she slipped her hand into the bosom of her dress.