"If you are not Beatrix Gordon, for God's sake tell us who you are?"
And she answered in a voice shaken by blended triumph and despair:
"I am your wife, St. Leon. Do not forget that."
Mrs. Gordon, springing forward, shook her wildly by the arm.
"Look at me, girl," she cried. "What have you done with my daughter, my blue-eyed Beatrix? Why are you here in her place?"
The great dark eyes, heavy with despair, turned slowly on her face.
"You are her mother?" she said.
"Yes, I am her mother," Mrs. Gordon answered, impatiently. "Tell me, girl, what have you done with my darling?"
And Laurel answered in a tone of the most pathetic wonder and reproach:
"You are her mother, and yet you did not love her enough to make her happy. You forget that 'love is lord of all.' Oh, why did not you let her be happy in her own fashion? Then all this need not have happened!"