And indeed, how very slight, after all, was the mere scrap of evidence on which Jane ventured to suggest so terrible a charge!  A man—­in man’s clothes—­fairly tall and slim, and apparently dark-haired, but stooping so much that he looked almost hump-backed:  how different from Aunt Emma, with her womanly figure, and her upright gait, and her sweet old white head!  Why, it was clearly ridiculous.

And yet, the fact remained that as Jane pointed to the Picture and asked, “Whose hand is that?” the answer came up all spontaneously to my lips, without hesitation, “Aunt Emma’s!”

I sat there long in my misery, thinking it over to myself.  I didn’t know what to do.  I couldn’t go and confide to Aunt Emma’s ear this new and horrible doubt,—­which was no doubt after all, for I knew it was impossible.  I hated Jane for suggesting it; I hated her for telling me.  Yet I couldn’t be left alone.  I was far too terrified.

“Oh, Jane;” I cried, looking up to her, and yet despising myself for saying it, “you must stop here to-night and sleep with me.  If I’m left by myself in the room alone, I know I shall go mad—­I can feel it—­I’m sure of it!”

Jane stopped with me and soothed me.  She was certainly very kind.  Yet I felt in a dim underhand sort of way it was treason to Aunt Emma to receive her caresses at all after what she had said to me.  Though to be sure, it was I, not she, who spoke those hateful words.  It was I myself who had said the hand was Aunt Emma’s.

As I lay awake and thought, the idea flashed across me suddenly, could Jane have any grudge of her own against Aunt Emma?  Was this a deliberate plot?  What did she mean by her warnings that I should keep my mind open?  Why had she said from the very first it was a woman’s hand?  Did she want to set me against my aunt?  And was Dr. Marten in league with her?  In my tortured frame of mind, I felt all alone in the world.  I covered my head and sobbed in my misery.  I didn’t know who were my friends and who were against me.

At last, after long watching, I dozed off into an uneasy sleep.  Jane had already been snoring long beside me.  I woke up again with a start.  I was cold and shuddering.  I had dreamed once more the same Australian dream.  My mamma as before stood gentle beside me.  She stooped down and smoothed my hair:  I could see her face and her form distinctly.  And I noticed now she was like her sister, Aunt Emma, only younger and prettier, and ever so much slighter.  And her hand, too, was soft and white like auntie’s—­very gentle and delicate.

It was just there that I woke up—­with the hand before my eyes.  Oh, how vividly I noted it!  Aunt Emma’s hand, only younger, and unscarred on the palm.  The family hand, no doubt:  the hand of the Moores.  I remembered, now, that Aunt Emma had spoken more than once of that family peculiarity.  It ran through the house, she said.  But my hand was quite different:  not the Moore type at all:  I supposed I must have taken it, as was natural, from the Callinghams.