'Somebody is sick and I am taking care of her,' she said to Mr. Tracy,
who watched her through the pantomime of the death scene with a feeling,
when it was over, that he had seen Gretchen die.
There was not a shadow of doubt in his mind that the sick woman was
Gretchen, the nurse the stranger found in the Tramp House, and the doll
baby the little girl upon whose memory that scene had been indelibly
stamped, and who, with her wonderful powers of imitation, could rehearse
it in every particular. To herself she always spoke in German, which no
one could understand sufficiently to make out what she meant. Once Mr.
St. Claire suggested to Frank that he take her to his brother, to whom
German was as natural as English, and who might be able to learn
something of her antecedents. And Frank had answered that he would do
so, knowing the while that nothing could tempt him to bring her and his
brother together until all the recollections of her babyhood, if she had
any, were obliterated, and she had in part forgotten her own language.
His first step in evil doing had to be followed by others until he was
so far committed that he could not retrace his steps, and two shadows
were with him constantly now, one always reproaching him for what he had
done, and the other telling him it was now too late to turn back.
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