Lilian clasped her hands over her eyes. Like a flash it seemed to pass before her. Zay Crawford's double, some of the girls had called her. "Oh," she cried, "can I endure it? What if they do not want me?" "If they had doubted the story it would have been kept from you. Can you guess--" Lilian flung herself in Mrs. Barrington's arms, with a long, dry sob. "Oh, do not give me up," she cried imploringly. "Let me stay with you. I will serve you faithfully for I love you, and these people are strangers----" "Think, what it must be after her years of sorrow to clasp her child in her arms; to know that it had been well cared for, tenderly loved. Oh, she is your own mother and you will come to love her dearly. This morning Dr. Kendricks was to tell Major Crawford the story. Fifteen minutes ago word came that they would be here. Lilian, your father feels hard toward Mrs. Boyd. You know Dr. Kendricks would have recognized you if she had not taken you away, and it is only natural that he should feel indignant." "Must I see him before she--she cannot last long. Oh, she must not hear this, and I will not leave her until the very last." Then the child suggested her father. "There they come," exclaimed Mrs. Barrington. The two men entered the drawing room. Lilian clung to Mrs. Barrington, but that lady impelled her forward. "This is your daughter, Major Crawford," she said, "and this, my dear, is your own father." Lilian stood like a statue. It was as if she was turning to stone. Oh, he could not deny her. The clear cut features, the golden bronze hair, the proud figure that seemed to add dignity to the whole. So, her mother had stood, in girlhood. "Oh, my child! my child! have you no word of gladness for me after these long years! The baby I never saw--my Marguerite." Was her tongue frozen and her lips stiff? Oh, what should she say? How could she welcome this stranger? "And that cruel woman has stolen your love from us, as she stole your beautiful body. Oh, where is she? Let me see her!" "You were to keep calm, Major," exclaimed the doctor. "We have gone over all this, and the poor woman is dying. To upbraid her now would be nothing short of murder." The Major glanced wildly around. "Why think of _our_ loss and sorrow. She _knew_ the child was not hers. And she ran off like a thief in the night. Oh, I can't forgive her." "Oh, you must," cried the girl with the first gleam of emotion she had shown. "For she mistook the nurse for the mother. Everything must have been in confusion. She thought of me as a motherless baby, perhaps to be cast on charity----" "But all these years! And poverty, when a lovely home awaited you; brothers and a sweet sister and such a mother! Oh, she ought to know and suffer for the crime." "She was almost crazy with her own grief. And she was good and tender and devoted to me. She shall not suffer for it in her dying moments."