they come to
me?"
Ruth and Alice looked at one another. What did it mean? This babbling of
strange names? Was it possible that they were on the track of
discovering the identity of the girl who now denied the name she had
given?
"Who is your father?" asked Ruth.
"And who is Auntie Amma?" inquired Alice.
"Why, don't you know? They live with me at the Palace. And my doll. Why
don't you bring my doll?"
"She is delirious again," whispered the nurse. "You had better go.
Evidently, she thinks she is a child again. Her doll!"
"I want my doll! Why don't you bring me my doll?" persisted the stricken
girl.
"What doll do you want?" asked Alice.
"My own doll," was the reply. "My dear doll that I always have in bed
with me when I am ill; my doll Estelle Brown!"
"Estelle Brown!" cried Ruth, in sudden excitement. "Is that the name of
your doll?"
"Yes! Yes! Bring her to me, please!"
"Who gave you that doll?" asked Ruth, and she waited anxiously for the
answer.
"My doll--my doll Estelle Brown. Why, my daddy gave her to me, of
course. My father!"
"And what was your father's name?" asked Ruth in a tense voice.
She and Alice and the nurse leaned forward in eager expectation. They
all recognized that a crisis was at hand. Would the stricken girl give
an answer that would be a clue to her identity--the identity she had
denied? Or would her words trail off into the meaningless babble of the
afflicted?
"What is your father's name?" Ruth repeated.
The girl in the bed raised herself to a sitting position. She looked at
the DeVere sisters--at the trained nurse. In her eyes now there was not
so much brightness as there was weariness and pain.
And also there was more of the light of understanding. She looked from
one to the other. Her lips moved, but no sound came from them. It was a
tense moment. Would she be able to answer? Would the obviously injured
brain be able to sift out the right reply from the mass of words that
hitherto had been meaningless?
"What is your father's name?" repeated Ruth in calm, even tones. "Your
father who gave you the doll, Estelle Brown? Who is he?"
Like a flash of lightning from the clear sky came the answer.
"Why, he is Daddy Passamore, of course!"
"Passamore!" gasped Alice. "Passamore?"
"Is your name Passamore?" whispered Ruth.
"Yes, I am Mildred Passamore. My father is Jared Passamore of San
Francisco. I don't know why I am here, except that I was hurt in the
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