“We were in Florence, Italy, at the time and I prayed that I might die, too.  It was during those dark hours that Mrs. Gibson proved her friendship for me.  She sailed for Italy the instant she received the cablegram announcing my husband’s death, and brought me back to America with her.  I spent a year with her in her New York home, before returning to Denver.  Since then I have never been east until this summer.

“Four months ago I received a letter from the nurse who had charge of Mabel on the day of her disappearance.  It was a great surprise to me, as she had left us directly after we landed with the intention of returning to France.  But the news the letter contained was a far greater surprise, for she stated that Mabel had never gone aboard the vessel.

“The nurse had had some personal business to attend to before going aboard, and in order to save time had taken Mabel with her.  In some inexplicable manner Mabel had strayed from her side.  She had made frantic search for the child and finally, not daring to go to us with the truth, had conceived the idea of making us believe that she had taken Mabel aboard the ship.  She had bribed the purser, a Frenchman whom she knew, to corroborate her story, and had succeeded in her treacherous design.

“She wrote that she had longed over and over again to confess the truth, but had not dared to do so.  She had heart trouble, she said, and her days were numbered.  Therefore she felt that she must confess the truth before it became too late.

“You can imagine,” said Mrs. Allison, “the effect this letter had upon me.  For fourteen years I had mourned my child as dead.  It seemed infinitely worse to hear that she had not died then, but was perhaps alive, and in what circumstances?

“The day I received the letter I took the train for the east, wiring the Gibsons to meet me, and aided by them engaged the best detective service upon the case.  There was little or nothing to furnish us with a clue, for the nurse’s lying statement had misled us; we were out at sea before we knew positively that Mabel had disappeared, and my long illness in Europe, followed by my husband’s death kept me from instituting a thorough search of New York City.

“I was bound for New York in answer to a summons from the men engaged on the case, when this accident occurred.  Mr. Gibson had offered to make the journey for me, but I felt that I alone must hear the first news—­and to think that through that blessed accident I stumbled upon my little girl.”  She ceased speaking and with streaming eyes again clasped Mabel in a fond embrace.

The chums found their own eyes wet, during this recital, but of the four, Jessica appeared to be the most deeply moved.  Mabel had meant more to her than to the others, and she found herself facing the severest trial that had so far entered her young life.  She drew a deep breath, then went bravely over to Mrs. Allison, saying with quivering lips: