Clara told her all that Sherwood had said, and even of her marriage with him, and the reason why she had married him, and of the subsequent death of Sherwood and Madge Taft.
Mrs. Bryant was completely overwhelmed by this revelation of matters, and after trying to unburden her perplexed mind, she said:
“No, Clara, you are not my child. I took you to raise when you were but two years old.”
“Are either of my parents living?” Clara asked.
“Your father may be, but your mother is dead, and it is by her dying request that I have never told you before of your being an orphan.”
“And have I no relations living?”
“Your mother said she had a brother living, but she had not heard of him for ten years, up to the hour of her death.”
“And you said my father might be living, did you not?”
“Yes; since the worst is known, I may as well tell all. Domestic trouble separated your parents. Your father enlisted as a soldier in the Mexican war, and as he never came back, it was supposed that he fell at the battle of Chapultepec. Your mother died shortly after the separation. Your father I never saw.”
“And so none of the settlers here know but what I am your child?”