They sat down together on a sofa, and taking up a newspaper Arthur fanned Jerrie gently, while she said to him:
"Do you really think I look like Gretchen?"
"Yes, except that you are taller. You might be her daughter."
"Had she—had Gretchen a daughter?" was Jerrie's next question, put hesitatingly.
"None that I ever heard of," Arthur replied.
"And her name, when a girl, was Marguerite Heinrich, was it not?" Jerrie went on.
"Yes. Who told you?" Arthur said.
"I saw it on a letter which you gave me to post years ago, when I was a child," Jerrie went on. "You never received an answer to that letter, did you?"
"What letter did you post for me to Marguerite Heinrich? I don't know what you mean," Arthur said, the old worried look settling upon his face, which always came there when he was trying to recall something he ought to remember.
As he grew older he seemed to be annoyed when told of things he had forgotten, and as the letter had evidently gone from his mind, Jerrie said no more of it. She remembered it well; and never dreaming that it had not been posted, she had watched a long time for an answer, which never came. Gretchen was dead; that was settled in her mind. But who was she? With the words, "What if it were so?" still buzzing in her brain, the answer to this question was of vital importance to her, and after a moment, she continued, as if she had all the time been talking of Gretchen: