"The best part," he repeated, incredulously.
"Yes, for I have a letter from Florence Fitzgerald, my cousin—the first letter in several years. I told you, did I not, that since her second marriage she has lived in Chicago—that great Western city where they held that wonderful World's Fair, you know, Leland."
"Yes, I know. I was there."
"Well, this letter from Chicago contains both good and bad news. Florence has lost her good and kind husband, and found her missing daughter."
"Found her daughter! Found Geraldine Harding!" cried the young man, springing to his feet, in wild excitement.
"Yes, or Geraldine Fitzgerald, as she calls her now. And, Leland, she will be a great heiress, for her mother's large private fortune will be given to her eldest daughter, as her second husband left her millions of money and a perfect palace of a home on Prairie avenue, the grandest location in the city."
She paused again in alarm, for this time her son had fallen back in his chair, his face death-white, his eyes half-closed.
Her words had been such a revelation to him that the joy of it all overcame him.
He remembered instantly the day he had seen the beautiful girl getting into the carriage before the artist's studio.
He had cried out that he knew her, but Ralph Washburn had said it was Miss Fitzgerald, a great heiress.