Slowly, as I compared these mental pictures of my first childhood one with the other, a strange fact seemed to loom forth, incomprehensible, incredible.  When first it struck me, all unnerved as I was, my reason staggered before it.  But it was true, none the less:  quite true, I felt certain.  Had I had two papas, then?—­for the pictures differed so.  Was one, clean-shaven, trim, and in a linen coat, the same as the other, older, graver, and sterner, with much hair on his face, and a rough sort of look, whom I saw more persistently in my later childish memories?  I could hardly believe it.  One man couldn’t alter so greatly in a few short years.  Yet I thought of them both alike quite unquestioningly as papa:  I thought of them too, I fancied, in a dim sort of way, as one and the same person.

These fresh mysteries occupied my mind for the greater part of that uneventful voyage.  To throw them off, I laughed and talked as much as possible with the rest of the passengers.  Indeed, I gained the reputation of being “an awfully jolly girl,” so heartily did I throw myself into all the games and amusements, to escape from the burden of my pressing thoughts:  and I believe many old ladies on board were thoroughly scandalised that a woman whose father had been brutally murdered should ever be able to seem so bright and lively again.  How little they knew!  And what a world of mystery seemed to oppress and surround me!

At last, early one morning, we reached the Gulf, and took in our pilot off the Straits of Belleisle.  I was on deck at the time, playing a game called “Shovelboard.”  As the pilot reached the ship, he took the captain’s hand, and, to my immense surprise, said in an audible voice: 

“So you’ve the famous Miss Callingham for a passenger, I hear, this voyage.  There’s the latest Quebec papers.  You’ll see you’re looked for.  Our people are expecting her.”

I rushed forward, fiery hot, and with a trembling hand took one of the papers he was distributing all round, right and left, to the people on deck.  It was unendurable that the memory of that one event should thus dog me through life with such ubiquitous persistence.  I tore open the sheet.  There, with horrified eyes, I read this hateful paragraph, in the atrociously vulgar style of Transatlantic journalism: 

“The Sarmatian, expected off Belleisle to-morrow morning, brings among her passengers, as we learn by telegram, the famous Una Callingham, whose connection with the so-called Woodbury Mystery is now a matter of historical interest.  The mysterious two-souled lady possesses, at present, all her faculties intact, as before the murder, and is indeed, people say, a remarkably spry and intelligent young person; but she has most conveniently forgotten all the events of her past life, and more particularly the circumstances of her father’s death, which is commonly conjectured to have been due to the pistol of some unknown lover.  Such freaks of memory are common, we all know, in the matter of small debts and of newspaper subscriptions, but they seldom extend quite so far as the violent death of a near relation.  However, Una knows her own business best.  The Sarmatian is due alongside the Bonsecours Quay at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, the 10th; and all Quebec will, no doubt, be assembled at the landing-stage to say ‘Good-morning’ to the two-souled lady.”