“Impossible,” exclaimed Mrs. Grange.
“Not at all,” quietly replied the President. “One is as likely as the other, while neither is impossible.”
Marriet Motuble continued as though there had been no interruption: “She died in my arms. I buried her at my own expense in a tomb befitting a queen. And truly she was a queen. The deed to the ground I built her tomb on I have in my safe amongst my legal documents. Every word is legible. I could not bear to think that her precious body, possibly before the flesh had decomposed, would be thrown out of the grave to make way for a new corpse, as was the cruel custom in Mexico then. Her tomb is in a state of perfect preservation yet. I hope soon to finish this cycle and have made arrangements to have the destructible part of me, or that part of me recognized by those not initiated, laid away there.”
“How interesting. Quite uncanny, though!” ventured Mrs. Grange, as she peered around her as though expecting to see a ghost. She evidently saw something; for her face turned very white and she trembled with fright as she sank into a chair.
The President saw but paid no attention to her. He was interested in Marriet Motuble. The story she was telling was a revelation to him.
She, too, saw that something unusual had happened to Mrs. Grange, but paid no attention to her, and continued: “I know the child’s genealogies, of both her past and present existence. She, like myself, is here for a purpose. There are many who have congregated here for the same purpose. While the prime cause for the great meeting here was the same, many great results will be obtained other than the one hoped for in the beginning.”
“Can it be that you are here also to aid the scientists in getting proof to bring the ‘Plunger from Kansas’ to justice?” asked the President, with much surprise, and showing great interest.
“Indirectly only. I am here for the direct purpose of finding one whom I loved in that same time—a young, beautiful woman, whose poverty was the result of the doings of the ‘Plunger from Kansas,’ and who suffered much loss financially and great abuse from the slanderous tongues of jealous Americans living in Chihuahua.”
“Are you certain that the lady of whom you speak is living now?” asked the President.
“It must be true. I feel her presence, yet I have not been able to find her. She will come. She will come. A young woman, beautiful and talented. Must I wait much longer? I——”