She had heart trouble, she said, and her days were numbered.

Therefore she felt that she must confess the truth before it became too late.
"You can imagine," said Mrs.Allison, "the effect this letter had upon me.

For fourteen years I had mourned my child as dead.

It seemed infinitely worse to hear that she had not died then, but was perhaps alive, and in what circumstances?
"The day I received the letter I took the train for the east, wiring the Gibsons to meet me, and aided by them engaged the best detective service upon the case.

There was little or nothing to furnish us with a clue, for the nurse's lying statement had misled us; we were out at sea before we knew positively that Mabel had disappeared, and my long illness in Europe, followed by my husband's death kept me from instituting a thorough search of New York City.
"I was bound for New York in answer to a summons from the men engaged on the case, when this accident occurred.