He realized then that his possession of the
picture and the manner in which it had come into his keeping were
matters of great perplexity to her, and that the woman whom he had met
in the Transcontinental held no significance for her at all, although he
had told her with rather marked emphasis that this woman--whom he had
thought was her mother--had been searching for a man who bore her own
name, O'Doone. The girl was plainly expecting him to say something, and
he reiterated this fact--that the woman in the coach was very anxious to
find a man whose name was O'Doone, and that it was quite reasonable to
suppose that _her_ name was O'Doone, especially as she had with her this
picture of a girl bearing that name. It seemed to him a powerful and
utterly convincing argument. It was a combination of facts difficult to
get away from without certain conclusions, but this girl who was so near
to him that he could almost feel her breath did not appear fully to
comprehend their significance. She was looking at him with wide-open,
wondering eyes, and when he had finished she said again:
"My mother is dead. And my father is dead, too. And my aunt is dead--up
at the Nest. There isn't any one left but my uncle Hauck, and he is a
brute.
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