t?
Oh, you remember?"

"My dear, she told it me like a story, and her face was white. But it
was all clear to me then, for I could not know who the bad man was--the
bad man who made two sisters each think the other dead. And I was for
helping her to tell them. Oh, may God bless her for her beautiful
face--so pale it was! And then she told me 'twas written by my husband."
Some new puzzle confronted her, and she repeated, haltingly:--"By ... my
... husband!" Then quite suddenly, struck by a new idea:--"But was it?
How could she know?"

"My dear, she showed it to her father, the Earl, and they were of one
mind. His lordship read the letter. Dr. Nash told me. But it was
Thornton's own letter to me that said _you_ were dead. I have got it
still." She was stopped by the return of Ruth Thrale, who had been half
waked by her mother's raised voice five minutes since, and had struggled
to complete consciousness under the sense of some burden of duty
awaiting her outside the happy oblivion of her stinted sleep. "How has
she been?" was her question on entering.

Granny Marrable could not give any clear account of the past hour of
talk; it was growing hazy to her, as reaction after excitement told,
more and more. Ruth asked no further questions, and urged her to go and
lie down--was ready to force her to do it, but she conceded the point,
and was just going, when her sister stopped her, speaking clearly,
without moving on the pillow.

"What was the letter?"

"What letter is she speaking of?" said Ruth.

Granny Marrable said with an effort:--"The letter that said she was
dead."

"Show it to me--show it me now, with the light! You have got it."

"Yes. I said to her that I had got it. But it is put away." This was
under Granny Marrable's breath, that old Maisie should not hear.

But she heard, and turned her head. "Oh, Phoebe, let me see it! Can it
not be got? Cannot Ruth get it?" She seemed feverishly alive, for the
moment, to all that was passing.

Ruth, thinking it would be better to satisfy her if possible, said:--"Is
it hard to find? Could I not get it?" To which old Phoebe replied:--"I
know where it is to lay hands on at once. But I grudge setting eyes on
it now, and that's the truth." Ruth wondered at this--it made her
mother's eagerness to see it seem the stranger. The story is always on
the edge of calling old Maisie Ruth's "new mother." Her mind was reeling
under the consciousness of two mothers with a like claim