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Updated: May 14, 2025
"You were appointed the guardian of Willa Murdaugh, were you not, Mr. North? I have brought her back to you, with proof of her absolute identity." "Bless my soul!" The rotund little man advanced with shining eyes, and seized the girl's hands. "I am overwhelmed, my dear girl, delighted! And you have proof, you say? What an amazingly fortunate turn of affairs!" No one echoed him for a moment.
You played a very shrewd game, my dear Miss Murdaugh, but your disinterested charity toward Tia Juana is open to question; a legal question, perhaps, if it comes to that, involving undue influence and a dummy title." "Assuming that I know what you are talking about, don't you think you are taking a great deal for granted?" asked Willa.
"When the baby was two years old, Ralph Murdaugh died, after a long illness which ate up the little they had been able to save. His wife, destitute and unable to support the child in any other fashion, turned to her old profession; she became what was known as a song-and-dance artiste at a hall named for its owner, 'Jake's'.
She laughed, adding with sudden seriousness: "My brother has told me so many interesting things of you, Miss Murdaugh, that I have wanted to really know you, but I suppose you have been submerged in a sea of festivity with your cousins. I am a gregarious person but not a conventionally social one.
He fell in love with a a young person who was not his equal socially; in fact, she earned her living by singing and dancing upon the stage of a music-hall. She was a most respectable, most exemplary young woman," he added hastily, "but Giles Murdaugh was violently opposed to the union. Her name was Violet Ashton." He paused, but the girl before him made no sign.
Her own inner conviction had been justified and an elation almost solemn in its intensity filled her heart. She was Willa Murdaugh! She could prove her right to the name which had been wrested from her! When Klondike Kate descended she bore in her hands a folded paper, yellowed and worn, and a tarnished locket on a bit of faded, scorched blue ribbon.
Where and when could that boy of his have encountered Willa Murdaugh? The man with the scarred forehead took her in to dinner and Willa listened politely to his rather heavy pleasantries, studying him the while through narrowed eyes. Of a type foreign to the frequenters of the Blue Chip, he had not crossed her path in Limasito, but his previous activities there were an open book to her.
"Ask Miss Murdaugh if she can find it convenient to call here this afternoon; tell her I would like to talk things over with her and will expect her between four and five o'clock." "Very good, Sir." Dan departed, colliding violently as he did so with an elderly gentleman who entered the inner office and banged the door behind him. "Mason, have you heard from her? Do you know where she has gone?"
"I was mistaken also, it appears. I fancied you were indisposed, but that was a mere façon de parler, no doubt. My cousin is getting on, isn't she, Starr?" Willa flushed, but Starr Wiley replied easily: "We were just renewing our acquaintanceship, Miss Murdaugh and I met in Limasito, you know." "How unfortunate!" Angie tittered. "Just when Willa was so successfully living down the past, too!
"Charming, Miss Murdaugh! I would not have missed it for worlds!" "How did you come here?" she stammered. "By way of the front door, most conventionally, I assure you. I heard the phonograph and told Welsh not to announce me." He shrugged, and drew off his glove. "Aren't you going to greet me, Miss Murdaugh?" There was a covert sneer in the repetition of her name, and Willa made no advance.
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