The major's letter did nothing, however, to lighten the gloom. On the contrary, it only increased it tenfold. The main substance of it was in this paragraph:

It's singular how much you can dig out about a subject, once you put your mind to it. I thought at first that I had told you all that was known about Jack Carringford and his affairs—all that could be discovered. But the deeper I go into it, the more I seem to unearth. Yesterday another friend to whom I had written, on the off-chance of getting a little information (but from whom I really didn't expect much) sent me this bit of news. It seems he heard it said that after Carringford went back to England he married again, and it is thought that he did not live very long after,—died suddenly of pneumonia, or something like it, in an obscure town in the north of England. Perhaps this will help you some in your amateur detective work. If I glean any more information, I'll let you know at once. I rather enjoy this delving into the past.

"Oh, horrors!" exclaimed Marcia. "Could anything be plainer than this is getting to be? Of course, that explains it all! Cecily didn't remember her father, and her 'mother' was really her stepmother. I wonder if she knows it. She never mentioned it, but then she seldom speaks of her mother, anyway. Though I always thought, from the way she acted, that she was very fond of her."

"It certainly grows more convincing with every added piece of news we hear," mused the captain. "I wish we could find some loophole for thinking that this tangle doesn't concern Cecily. But how on earth she can have any Chinese ancestry, beats me. She doesn't show a trace of it. One would certainly think she'd have almond eyes and coarse, straight hair, or a dark complexion, or something! It's the one thing that gives me the slightest hope that she can't be Carringford's daughter."

"But what shall we do now?" questioned Janet, bringing them back abruptly to the affairs of the moment.

"The first thing to do," declared Captain Brett, "is to question Cecily about her father and mother, and see what she knows. She may recall something that will give us another clue. If this proves to be the right trail, we've got to follow it up, get into communication with the Carringfords in England, and see if they will do anything about her. They ought to be willing to provide for his daughter. But we'll have to be very sure of our facts, or they'll pay no attention, I suppose. Somehow or other we'll have to trace out Carringford's career in England after he returned. I wish I knew the name he assumed, but no one seems to be able to tell us that."

"But even still, we haven't the slightest clue to the reason why Cecily was sent to Miss Benedict," mused Marcia.

"Why, yes, we have something new now," interrupted Janet. "Hasn't it occurred to you that Mr. Carringford's second wife might have been some connection of the Benedicts, or known them, or something?"

"Sure enough! sure enough!" cried the captain, thumping his knee. "This puts the thing in an entirely new light. We must find out a little more about that second wife. You get what you can from Cecily, but do be careful how you question her. The child is sensitive, and was apparently very fond of the lady she called her mother. Try not to probe too deeply. And remember to explain to her that you are not asking just out of idle curiosity, which she'd be perfectly right in resenting."

It was with no very pleasant anticipations that Marcia and Janet looked forward to their interview with Cecily next afternoon. How to approach the subject without giving her a clue to the real state of affairs, they were puzzled to know. Plan after plan they formed, only to reject after thinking them over. "Suppose Cecily should ask this," or "What if Cecily should inquire why we say that?" spoiled every outline of the conversation that they could imagine. At last Janet declared:

"It's perfectly useless to think now what we'll say, or what she'll answer. Let's just wait till the time comes and say what seems best at the moment. The whole conversation may be entirely different from anything we plan."

"I guess you're right," sighed Marcia. "I'm tired out thinking about it, anyhow." And so they put it all aside till Cecily's arrival.

When she came, that afternoon, she found two very serious and thoughtful friends awaiting her. One thing at least, they had determined,—not to put off the dreaded interview till later in the day, but have it over at once and get it off their minds. So when they were all comfortably seated in Marcia's cozy room, Janet began:

"Cecily, would you mind very much if we asked you a few questions? You remember, the other day, we said that something had come up concerning you, we thought, and we would tell you about it later. Well, we aren't quite ready to tell you all about it yet, but it would help a great deal if you'd answer a few questions about yourself. Will you?" And she felt an immense sensation of relief, after these words were spoken, at having at least taken the first plunge.

"Why, of course!" assented Cecily, wonderingly. "That is, if I possibly can."

"And you'll remember that we aren't asking just out of curiosity, but because it may help to untangle your affairs?" interrupted Marcia, anxiously. Cecily only smiled and squeezed her hand, as if an answer to that were unnecessary.

"Well, dear," said Janet, in a hesitating voice, "could you tell us whether you know this: was your father ever married twice?"

Cecily started and flushed a little. "Oh, I—I don't know anything about such a thing!" she murmured. "I—I don't think so. You see, he died before I remember anything about him, and my mother never spoke of him to me very much."

"Then she never told you anything about that?" went on Janet.

"No," replied Cecily, very positively.

"Now, I have one more question to ask that I'm afraid may startle you, but please don't attach too much importance to it. Was the lady you called mother your real mother or your stepmother?"

This time Cecily fairly jumped. "Oh, no, no!" she cried. "I'm sure, I'm very sure she was my own mother. She would certainly have told me if she had not been. I would have known it. Why do you ask?"

"That, you know, is what we can't just explain yet," answered Janet, evidently distressed. "Were you very, very fond of her, Cecily?"

"Indeed, yes!" replied the puzzled girl. "How could I help but be? She was so lovely and sweet and good to me, and seemed to live only for my comfort and happiness. I never dreamed of such a thing as her not being my own mother." There were real tears in Cecily's eyes as she made this declaration. Marcia and Janet experienced as unpleasant a sensation as if they had been compelled to torture a helpless kitten. And yet the task must be gone through with and there were further queries to make.

"Do forgive us for all this, Cecily," begged Marcia. "It hurts us horribly to make you feel badly. We wouldn't do it for the world if there weren't a good reason. But can you tell us this? Was there anything your mother ever said or did that would in any way suggest that she might not be—your own mother? Think hard, Cecily dear."

The girl sat a long while, chin in hand, staring out of the window at the tightly shuttered expanse of "Benedict's Folly" opposite. No one spoke, and the others made a vain pretense of working hard at their embroidery. But the hands of both shook so that the stitches were very, very crooked indeed. At last Cecily turned to them and spoke in a very subdued voice:

"These things are making me very unhappy, but I know you only mean them for my good. My mother did say one or two things that I thought nothing of at the time, but now, since your questions, seem as if they may have another meaning. One was this. We were looking in the mirror together one time, and I said how queer it was that I didn't look a bit like her. I was so fair and light-haired, and had rosy cheeks, and she was dark and her eyes were brown and her hair almost black. She smiled and said:

"'No, it isn't very strange when you think—' and then stopped very suddenly and flushed quite red. And I asked her what she meant, but she only replied: 'Oh, nothing, nothing, dear! Children often look very different from their parents, not at all like them.' And she wouldn't say any more. I thought it strange for a while, but soon forgot all about it. I can't imagine now what she meant, unless it was—that. The only other thing I remember is this. I asked her one time whether, when I was a tiny little baby, I wore pink or blue bows on my dresses. She was very busy about something at the time and she just said, sort of absent-mindedly, 'I don't know I'm sure.' And then she added, in a great hurry, 'Oh, I don't remember! Pink, I guess.' I thought it strange that she should forget how she dressed me, for she always had a very good memory. But I forgot that, too, very soon. That is all."

Marcia and Janet glanced uneasily at each other. The information seemed to confirm their worst apprehensions. But Janet went on:

"Just one more question, dear, and we'll stop this horrid inquisition. Can you tell us what was your mother's maiden name, the name of her people?"

"Yes," said Cecily. "It was Treadwell. But she hadn't any people left—they were all dead, and she was the last one of her family. But, oh! can't you tell me, girls, why you have had to ask all these questions? I have waited so patiently, and I have worried so about it all. And what you have said to-day has made me feel worse than ever."

"Dear heart, we don't want to tell you quite yet," soothed Marcia. "It wouldn't do you any good to know about it till we're positive beyond a doubt. It isn't anything so very terrible, anyhow. Nothing to worry about at all. But just something we wish might be a little different. And nothing could possibly make the least difference in the way we care for you, anyway, so just don't worry another bit. Now I'm going to play for you." And she drew her violin from its case.

Marcia gave them quite a concert that afternoon, rendering selection after selection to please them, glad indeed of the diversion and relief from the unpleasantness of their accomplished task. But she did not play the "TrÄumerei," for some reason not very well defined even to herself, but vaguely connected with recent disclosures. At last Cecily herself asked for it, and then, of course, Marcia could not refrain from obliging her. When it was over, Cecily took her departure, and the girls, left alone, plunged at once into the discussion of the most recent developments of the mystery.

That evening Captain Brett and the two girls held a council of war.

"There's no denying," he said, "we've discovered the most important thing yet in learning that name—Treadwell. We've something to work from now. With that to start from, I can set on foot some inquiries over in England that may establish her identity. And you must ask Miss Benedict (though I hate to be constantly troubling her in this way) if she has any recollection of some one by that name who could possibly have any claim on her. Do this as soon as possible. We're certain to get at the root of the matter very soon now."

"Do you think," asked Marcia, "that those remarks of her mother's that Cecily repeated look as if we were right in believing it to be her stepmother?"

"It certainly seems so to me," he acknowledged. "Of course, we must remember this. When you have a suspicion that certain things are so, every little circumstance and every lightest remark seem to confirm you in that belief. Often these things have absolutely no bearing on it whatever, but you think they have, simply because you fear that they have or want them to have. So we mustn't be misled by chance remarks. I will admit, however, that these particular ones seem singularly to bear us out in our conjectures."

"Well, do let's get some of these things settled to-morrow," sighed Marcia. "I'm losing so much sleep over it that I'm beginning to feel like an owl. I just worry and worry all night long it seems to me. Let's ask Miss Benedict about the name of Treadwell when we go there, if we can possibly manage to see her."

"I'm sorry to disappoint you about that," interrupted the captain. "But I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to remain at home to-morrow. I'm due downtown on some errands that will take me to a number of places. And at the same time, I'm expecting an important business message over the telephone. I shall have to ask you to be here without fail to take the message for me. I can't trust Eliza to get it right. So you'll have to put off your visit for another day. But don't be too much disappointed, for while I'm away I shall be making inquiries as to how we must go about tracing the name of Treadwell in England. That will be something accomplished." And with this consolation the girls had to be content.

"Now," said Janet, next morning, when the captain had gone and they had resigned themselves to a long day of waiting, "I have a plan to propose. Let's not talk or even think a thing about all this business to-day. If we do, we'll only make ourselves more miserable than we are. I found a perfectly fascinating new book in the library yesterday. Let's sit and read it, turn about, and see if we can't both finish those centerpieces we've been working on so long. We'll have to work like everything to do it. That ought to keep our minds off of our troubles. And we'll telephone for some French pastry for dessert at luncheon, and some candy for this afternoon."

The plan seemed to offer pleasant possibilities, and they both settled themselves comfortably in the cool living-room to pass the morning. The book was well begun and the embroidery advancing rapidly, when Eliza came in with a letter just left in the box, and deposited it on the library table.

"It's for the captain," she announced, as she turned away. Marcia jumped up and scrutinized the writing.

"Oh, Janet!" she exclaimed at once; "it's from the major!"

"It is?" cried her friend, apprehensively. "Then it's some more horrid news he's unearthed. I'm certain of it! Not a letter comes from him but it's something to worry us more. I just hate the sight of them!"

"Yes; and what's more," moaned Marcia, "we can't even know what's in this one till Father comes home this evening. Why, I feel as if I'd go crazy, having to wait all that time!"

"Well, you'll have to wait," commented Janet, philosophically, "so you might as well do it as peacefully as you can. Come, let's go on with our book."

It was all very well to speak philosophically about the matter, however, but to act so was a different affair. Try as they might, they could not, from that moment, concentrate their minds on the pleasant program they had mapped out for themselves. A dozen times during the morning Marcia would stop reading and glance speculatively at the unopened letter. A dozen times Janet left her fancy-work and strolled over to inspect the superscription anew. The French pastry at luncheon failed to soothe them, and the candy in the afternoon remained uneaten.

At three o'clock they took to staring out of the window to watch for the captain's return. And as they watched they detailed to each other the various things they surmised might be in the major's letter. Marcia asserted that he had probably discovered the second wife's name to be Treadwell, thus confirming their worst fears. And Janet declared that he had no doubt ascertained just why Cecily had been sent to the Benedict home. Perhaps it was even to prevent her being sent back to China to her mandarin grandfather. Nothing they could imagine was too dreadful to fit into the scheme of things. By half past five they were the most miserable pair of girls in the big city. And at that moment, they heard the captain's key in the hall door.

"Quick! quick! quick!" they breathlessly panted at him, explaining nothing, but only waving the major's letter in his face. Asking no questions, he took it, slit it open, and glanced hurriedly through the contents. Then he gave a long, low whistle.

"Oh, tell us!" groaned Marcia. "What more that's quite horrible has he found out?"

For answer the captain sat down and laughed till the tears stood in his eyes. At last he managed to gasp: "Well, of all the dances I've ever been led, this is the worst and most foolish! But it's just like the major. He always was the most impulsive chap. You'll be delighted to know that he's made one more discovery—and that is that he has been 'barking up the wrong tree,' as they say. Here's what he writes:

"It occurred to me yesterday, in connection with this affair, to look up some of the old diaries I used to keep in the China days. They have been stored away in the attic in a chest for years, but I got them out and have been running over them, hoping to come across an entry that might have some bearing on the matter in question. And, quite to my chagrin, I did discover this. I will quote it, just as it stands: Today Carringford was married according to native customs. None of us invited.

"But here's the point of departure, so to speak. This entry was made on March 10, 1890, and you see it doesn't agree at all with the inscription on your bracelet, which is, I believe, September 25, 1889. So, of course, the only inference that can be drawn is that they were two separate and distinct affairs that have absolutely no connection. So sorry! Anything else I can do for you, I'll be delighted, etc., etc."

The captain did not finish the remainder of the letter, for the excellent reason that no one of his audience was paying the least attention to it.

When he looked up, at this point, Marcia was prone on the couch alternately sobbing and laughing and sobbing again, and Janet was staring out of the window, blinking hard to restrain the tears of relief that would insist on rolling down her cheeks.

And in the midst of this curious state of affairs, who should open the door and walk in but—Aunt Minerva! Suitcase in hand, she stared at the three in amazement for a second till, with a glad cry of recognition, they all rushed upon her and literally snowed her under with embraces.

"I couldn't let you know I was coming, because I didn't know myself till this morning," she explained. "Drusilla's sister Ellen came in unexpectedly from the West, and of course that relieved me. I just packed up in half an hour, and here I am. Whatever is the matter with you all? When I came in you looked as if you'd just attended the funeral of your last friend. I hope Eliza hasn't given you all indigestion!"

"We'll tell you after dinner, Minerva," laughed the captain. "It's a long and complicated tale. My, but we're glad to see you again!"

That evening they made her sit down and listen while they rehearsed the story. It had to begin with the description of their day on shipboard, the very day that she had gone away, and ended with the major's final letter.

She listened to it all very quietly and without any comments whatever, except for an indignant and scornful sniff once in a while.

"Well," demanded Marcia, when it was over and they were waiting for her to speak, "what do you think of it?"

"I think," she remarked cryptically, "that you needed Minerva Brett here to manage this affair for you. She would have given you a little better advice than to go off on a wild goose chase down to Pennsylvania on the wrong trail!"

They stared at her in open-mouthed amazement.

"You might explain yourself, Minerva," mildly suggested the captain.

"I might, but I'm not going to!" she replied firmly. "At least, not just at present." And with a tantalizing smile, she sweetly bade them all good night and departed to her room.

"Janet," said Marcia, that night, as she curled her arms up over her head on the pillow, "isn't it heavenly to go to sleep with that horrid weight lifted from your mind? We seem to be just as far as ever from solving the riddle about Cecily, but at least, the darling isn't the granddaughter of a mandarin! But, do you know, I can't help but wonder where that poor little granddaughter is, and what became of her. She sort of seems like a real person to me now."

"I don't wonder about her, and what's more, I don't care," sighed Janet. "As long as it wasn't Cecily. What's puzzling me is how your aunt expects to solve the riddle? What can she know about it?"

"Well, I don't bother about that," returned Marcia, "because I'm glad to let somebody else have a hand in working at it now. I'm content to leave it to Aunt Minerva!"