Then it came to me like a flash of lightning; all the perplexity and wonder I had at times experienced with regard to Mrs. Schuyler was made clear, and without stopping to think how it could be and thinking only that it was, I said: “_You_ are Heloise!” while my knees shook so that I was compelled to sit down upon the nearest chair to keep myself from falling. “Yes, I was Heloise Fordham once,” she answered, her lip quivering and the great tears gathering in her eyes and rolling down her cheeks. “Ettie,” she continued, “I wanted to tell you so many times, but dared not, for until that sickness of mine in November my husband even did not know it.” At this I looked up in surprise, and she went on: “I asked you to stay with me that I might tell you the story first, and let you break it to the people, for I will have no more concealments.” Then she told me the whole story, and to my dying day I shall not forget the ringing sweetness and joy in her voice when she said: “Gertie is my daughter.” I had heard the rest of the story with a tolerable degree of equanimity, but that last electrified me like the shock from a battery, and springing to my feet I exclaimed: “Gertie your daughter! Gertie your child!” “Yes, Ettie, God has been good to me. He has taken care of my little baby girl and made her into a woman whom any mother might love; and oh, how I do love her, and how hard it is for me to stay here and know that she is only two hours away. But we thought it best for my husband to go first and tell her before I saw her. He offered to do that; he tries to spare me all he can; oh, he is so good and kind, and has behaved so nobly through it all.” She was crying now, and I did not try to stop her, for I knew tears would do her good. And she was calmer after it, and talked with me until long after midnight of the strange story and the old life at the cottage when we both were girls. Early the next morning the colonel’s first telegram came: “Godfrey is very sick, but out of danger, we hope. Miss Rossiter and Gertie both here; the latter well, but tired.” I doubt if Edith paid much attention to anything but the last of the telegram, the part relating to Gertie. This she read and re-read, as if there were a pleasure even in the sight of the dear name. “You see Mrs. Westbrooke named her Gertrude for her own little girl who died,” she explained to me, “and as she did not know whether she had been baptized or not she had her christened ‘Gertrude Heloise Westbrooke,’ so Westbrooke really is her name, and I am glad, for I know my husband would rather have it that than Lyle.” After lunch came another telegram: “Godfrey better. Gertie at Miss Rossiter’s. Shall see her to-night.” That evening Edith was like a crazy woman walking up and down the halls, and then through her suite of rooms and back again into the hall, clasping her hands tightly together, and whispering to herself: