She wept bitterly at the thought that her precious granddaughter had so nearly lost her life through this mysterious treachery.
"My dear, I never wrote you a line, nor did I ever hear from you. I thought you were too proud to care about us; so I let you alone, although it nearly broke my poor heart!"
She gazed with untiring love at the beautiful face, trying to trace in it every faint resemblance to her dead daughter.
"You are more like your father than your mother," she said, with vague disappointment. "Your eyes, your features are his; but there is an expression like Zaidee's, and your hair is gold like hers was, only a richer, deeper shade. You are more beautiful even than Zaidee was," she continued, fondly, as she stroked the bronze-gold curls.
Chester had little to say. He looked and listened eagerly, his heart thrilling at the thought that Kathleen was his cousin, and in a measure belonged to them.
"For her father has disinherited her; her step-mother cast her off. We are her nearest and dearest, and she will stay with us and share our lot," he said within himself.
Kathleen, while confiding very freely in them, had held back with a young girl's shyness the story of her love affair and her engagement of marriage. She did not suppose they would care for that, and she was so anxious to know what had befallen her uncle that she dwelt constantly on that subject.
"Perhaps they murdered him, too," she sobbed. "Oh, cousin! will you not telegraph at once to my friends in Boston, and let them know where I am? Perhaps in that way I may get news of him sooner. And they will be so uneasy over my fate."
"They?" the young man repeated, with his curious eyes upon her face.