The letter which she now found before her was not from this Clare Tristram, but from her daughter. Still it was signed Clare Tristram, and this fact set her thinking. She had never heard the name of the man whom the girl had actually married, and she had certainly never heard that the man was any relation to Clare Tristram. “Dear Madam,--I write to you in great doubt and some fear,” the letter ran. “My mother, who died only two months ago at Cairo, where we have lived for several years, told me, a few days before the end came to her long illness, that I had no relations in the world, and no friends to whom she could entrust me after she was gone; but that she felt that you would accept the charge, if only to save me from her fate. These were the exact words of my dear mother, and I repeat them to you, because I think they may constitute some claim upon your pity, and I feel that I have only your pity to appeal to. “My mother told me how she had done a cruel wrong to your mother's brother; but that act brought with it such a punishment as few women are called on to bear. The one for whom she forsook the noblest man in the world showed himself within a year of her marriage to be so bad that when he deserted her, she would not let me bear his name. She would not even let me know what that name was. “Only a few days before her death I heard the pitiful story from her lips, and she told me to go to you, and entreat you to save me from the cruel fate that was hers. I ventured to ask her if she thought it likely that you would receive me, on the ground that she had done a great wrong to your relative; but she said, 'Agnes Mowbray's mother was my dearest friend and schoolfellow, and I know that her daughter will be as her mother was.' “Dear Miss Mowbray, I venture to repeat to you the doubts which I expressed to my mother; and if you say to me that you do not wish to see me, I shall not trouble you further; nor indeed shall I pose as one who has been unjustly treated. I have sufficient money for my support, and besides, even if that were to come to an end, I can earn enough by my singing to keep myself comfortably--more than comfortably. The kind friends who took charge of me on the journey to England are quite willing that I should remain with them for an indefinite period. But I can do nothing except what my beloved mother desired me to do. “That is why I write to you now, entreating you to reply to me. I hope you will. “Clare Tristram.” Agnes read this unexpected letter with mixed feelings. It had not much of a suppliant air about it. The writer seemed desirous only to place her in possession of the facts which had compelled her to write. “Is this child sent by God to draw my thoughts away from myself?” she said as she laid down the letter. “Is the child coming to give me comfort in my sad hour?” Before evening she had written to Clare Tristram asking her to come on a visit to The Knoll. CHAPTER XV