"'When you read this I shall be no more,' she wrote. 'Oh, Doctor Bryan, I have paid the penalty of my folly with my life. I am slowly dying of starvation. For myself, I bow to the fate I have brought upon my own head. But the result of my folly does not rest here. It falls upon the head of an innocent little babe whom I must leave behind me. Oh, Doctor Bryan, this is the prayer that in the last moments of my life I make to you:
"'Plead with the little one's father to let her come to you. If he keeps her, may God in heaven pity her future. He will blast her life as he did mine, or--if it suits his pleasure, he will abandon her on the streets to starve, as I am doing now. If I could think that she would be with you, I would die without this heavy load on my heart. She is so fair and beautiful--my poor little baby! She has only one blemish--the same scar is upon her bosom that is upon mine, and which I have heard you say was upon the bosom of my mother--the birthmark of the three spears.
"'I can not write any more. My hand trembles so that I can scarcely hold the pen.
"'Good-bye, Doctor Bryan. Never forget your poor, heart-broken ALICE.'
"I searched for her night and day," repeated the old man, with a sob in his voice. "Alice died at sea, and the fate of the little one could not be learned, nor that of the father. I never ceased searching until the last year. Then I said to myself, 'It is useless--useless. Alice's baby is dead.' But I have found her most miraculously at last, thank God!"
This revelation created the most intense excitement among the women, who had listened breathlessly to the _dénouement_.
He had scarcely ceased speaking ere Dorothy opened her eyes. She found to her great consternation a crowd surrounding her.
But in an instant memory returned to her, and with a startled cry she struggled up to a sitting posture, gazing in blank bewilderment upon the crowd that had gathered about her.
"I--I fainted and fell backward," she began; but the old gentleman bent quickly over her, interrupting, hastily:
"Yes, you fell backward and down into the water, my child, and came near drowning. Where is the young man who saved her?" he cried. "Will some one fetch him here at once to me, so that I may thank him? Oh, child, child!" he cried, again bending over Dorothy, "I would have recognized you among ten thousand! You look at me with your mother's eyes!"