“Child, how do you know? You have not seen it.”
“Oh, I do know, I knew last night he was going to bring it. I heard him say so at your lecture last night. He remembers, you know. He is trying to palliate the wrongs he did in that day long gone by. He is afraid that retribution will overtake him, that he will be reduced to poverty.”
“Did I not tell you, your Honor, that she was no child. That she is a ghost a-talking like a grown woman philosopher,” ventured Juan, edging nearer the Governor, while he glared at Catalina as if she were a spook.
“Be sensible, Juan. Be sensible. I do admit, however, that the child is a wonder even to me; that she has a power of speech that would be the envy of many a collegian. But she is a child of flesh and blood, nevertheless, and a wonderful creation, too,” concluded the Governor.
Catalina put an end to further remarks by him, by saying: “What is it, dear papa, written on the back of the picture?”
The Governor turned the photograph around, and said: “To be sure, child, there is something written on it. It is very dim. One moment—I will use some of our restorative liquid, and then read it.”
In the center of his bedroom stood a beautifully carved rosewood table, on which was a magnificently beautiful piece of sculpture. It represented a little girl, about eight years old, distributing the olive leaves from a branch which seemed to be always full. The Governor placed his hand fondly upon the head of the statue, and at the same moment held the back of the photograph over the mouth of the marble representation of the child. A vapor spread over the pasteboard, yellow and stained by time, and in three seconds, every word written thereon stood out in bold relief.
He read aloud: “My baby girl, Helen Hinckley, July 3d, 1898. Boston, Massachusetts. Age, eight.”
“The same, the same,” replied the Governor, his voice full of emotion. “But it does not tell me enough! How am I to know that this was brought here by the ‘Plunger from Kansas.’”
“On the paper in your hand,” said Catalina, “is a message from the ‘Plunger.’”