"It was Zaidee—Zaidee Franklyn," murmured the girl.
"How did you know?" in astonishment.
"No matter. Tell me all about her," answered Kathleen, whose memory had returned to her as by a flash of lightning at sight of that lovely face.
"There is little to tell," he replied. "My poor cousin's story is short and tragic, like her life. My grandmother had but two children, a son and a daughter. The son, my father, died years ago, but Zaidee, his petted young sister, died years before—died, alas! by her own hand."
She shivered like one in a chill, and he said:
"Was it not horrible? She was so young, so lovely, and she had everything, it seemed, to make her happy. But this is her story: When she was barely sixteen, a rich man from Boston married her and took her away from her simple home to his grand, rich one. She loved her handsome husband very dearly, and seemed to be wildly happy. Her people did not hear from her often, but she sent this picture and many gifts to her mother. In a year she had a little daughter, but she did not invite grandma to go and see the child. Vincent Carew was rich and great, and very proud, so the Franklyns believed that he was trying to break his young wife off entirely from her past. The Franklyns were proud, too, in their way. They resented it; and so the communication between the two families almost ceased, until, suddenly, like a clap of thunder, came the news that the young wife had committed suicide!"
"Why?" she gasped.
"We do not know. It was a profound mystery even to her husband. But it broke my grandfather's heart. He died in less than a week after the news came. Grandma came, then, to live with us at River Cottage. My mother died in a few years after, then my father. We two—grandma and I—are the last of the family unless my cousin, Kathleen Carew, Zaidee's child, is yet living. That we do not know. We wrote several times. No answer came, and we gave up the hope of ever knowing the daughter of the proud Vincent Carew."
"And she has never written to you?" asked the girl, in wonder.
"Never," he replied.