"She confessed, then, that it was true?" said Clifford, in a tone of suspense.
"No, stranger still!" said Mora, as she raised a tear-stained face to his--"no, Clifford, she seemed struck dumb with astonishment, and reiterated the assertion solemnly that I was her only daughter, born five years after that tragedy. I am convinced that it is true, Clifford; nothing can convince me that she is trying to deceive us, for she is too sincere to keep the truth from us now. Yes, I am an Estill; but she said that my strange resemblance to the picture in the locket had always perplexed her, and my father and they were very sensitive on the subject. She saw you were startled by my lack of resemblance to any one of the family, when you made your first visit here; but she is glad to know that you are to be her son at last, Clifford." Had a thunderbolt fallen at his feet, young Warlow could not have been more startled than he was at this announcement. Then, after a moment of silence, he said: "Ah! Mora darling, it does not matter whose daughter you may be, so your heart is mine; but how strange it is that we should have arrived at such a wrong conclusion!" Then, as he began to reflect, he found that her mysterious resemblance to Ivarene was their strongest proof that she was not an Estill.
An interview with Mrs. Estill followed, in which she gave a willing assent to the lovers' union; then she again asserted, with truth and sincerity stamped upon her face and tone, that Mora was her only daughter, born of her own flesh and blood, but that there was a mystery connected with her birth which she had never revealed to any one but her husband.
"Mother! mother! what is it?" said Mora in great agitation, while Clifford sprang up with a look of intense interest depicted upon his face.
"It is a strange and unreal thing to relate in this enlightened and skeptical age, and I should never divulge it but for the events of the last few days; but Mora's unaccountable resemblance to the face in the locket, which is that of Ivarene, is not the only mystery that surrounds her birth. In the autumn of 1849, September 16th--I remember the date perfectly--one of our herders came in at night very much terrified by a sight which he had just witnessed. He had seen two mysterious lights flitting about the base of Antelope Butte, several miles up the valley, where he had been looking after our cattle that had become scattered while we were at Fort Riley--driven to take refuge there from the Cheyenne Indians that were raiding the frontier settlements during August. Why I remember the date so distinctly is from the fact that we had only returned that day, finding our cabin in ashes.