her was a well-to-do
physician, named, of course, Dr. Bentley. He died when Phil was a baby,
and, when he was seven years old, mother married Mr. Robert Young, a
mining engineer. I was born a year later--I am really his half-sister,
you see."

"But," interrupted Donald, "I should think that the name Philip Bentley
might have stirred a responsive chord in your memory before this--no, I
don't suppose that it would have, after all, for you were so small that
you didn't remember your own last name."

"Yes, and not only that, but Philip was always called 'Young'--when he
was a boy, anyway. Well, it seems that, when he was ten, and I was
three, he was sent all alone to visit an uncle, a brother of his own
father, who lived in Richmond. It was while he was away for the summer
that my dear father was sent into the Cumberland Mountains between
Kentucky and Virginia, prospecting for coal on behalf of the company in
the employ of which he was. He took mother and me with him for a
camping vacation, and ... and you know as much as I about the tragedy
which separated us, and made such changes in our lives."

Rose paused again, a prey to memory.

"And then?" prompted Donald, gently.

"Then, Philip said, when no word came from his parents for several
weeks, his uncle left no stone unturned to find them, and at length the
Federal Revenue authorities located the bodies of my dear mother and
father, and part of their wrecked canoe, in the swift river, almost at
the foot of the mountains. Of course every one assumed that I had ...
had been drowned, too."

"Oh, thank God that you were not, my dear," breathed Donald, so softly
that she could not hear him.

"Then Philip went to live permanently with his uncle, who raised and
educated him as one of his own sons. Of course he took his real name
again. Oh, Donald, isn't it too wonderful?"

"Yes, dear heart, wonderful, indeed." There was a long silence. Then
Donald asked, softly, "And Philip? How does he feel?"

"He ... he is happy, too," came her reply, somewhat haltingly. "Of
course, just at first ... oh, please don't ask me, Don. But now he is
content, for he knows that I ... I couldn't ever have been anything else
to him, because I loved ano.... I loved _you_."

"He knows that? Rose, you didn't tell him?"

"Yes, I did," she answered, bravely. "And let me tell _you_, sir, that
it is lucky for you that ... that you asked me; for, if you hadn't, you
would have had my big brother to