human
I won't try to tell you the explanation in Philip's words; but it seems that we used to live in Louisville. Philip's own father was a well-to-do physician, named, of course, Dr. Bentley. He died when Phil was a baby, and, when he was seven years old, mother married Mr. Robert Young, a mining engineer. I was born a year later--I am really his half-sister, you see.
gpt
But, interrupted Donald,
human
I should think that the name Philip Bentley might have stirred a responsive chord in your memory before this--no, I don't suppose that it would have, after all, for you were so small that you didn't remember your own last name.
gpt
Yes, and not only that, but Philip was always called 'Young'--when he was a boy, anyway. Well, it seems that, when he was ten, and I was three, he was sent all alone to visit an uncle, a brother of his own father, who lived in Richmond. It was while he was away for the summer that my dear father was sent into the Cumberland Mountains between Kentucky and Virginia, prospecting for coal on behalf of the company in the employ of which he was. He took mother and me with him for a camping vacation, and ... and you know as much as I about the tragedy which separated us, and made such changes in our lives.
human
And then?
gpt
Then, Philip said, when no word came from his parents for several weeks, his uncle left no stone unturned to find them, and at length the Federal Revenue authorities located the bodies of my dear mother and father, and part of their wrecked canoe, in the swift river, almost at the foot of the mountains. Of course every one assumed that I had ... had been drowned, too.
human
Oh, thank God that you were not, my dear,
gpt
Then Philip went to live permanently with his uncle, who raised and educated him as one of his own sons. Of course he took his real name again. Oh, Donald, isn't it too wonderful?
human
Yes, dear heart, wonderful, indeed. There was a long silence. Then Donald asked, softly,
gpt
And Philip? How does he feel?
human
He ... he is happy, too, came her reply, somewhat haltingly.
gpt
Of course, just at first ... oh, please don't ask me, Don. But now he is content, for he knows that I ... I couldn't ever have been anything else to him, because I loved ano.... I loved _you_.
human
He knows that? Rose, you didn't tell him?
gpt
Yes, I did, she answered, bravely.
human
And let me tell _you_, sir, that it is lucky for you that ... that you asked me; for, if you hadn't, you would have had my big brother to deal with!