Her great, dark eyes grew even rounder. “Yes! Yes! So you do understand! That was what our father fondly called me: his ‘little Cordelia.’ I alone—his all-devoted daughter—could assuage the dreadful injustices he had suffered at the hands of a cruel and uncomprehending world.” Here, her countenance underwent a singular transformation—her eyes narrowing to fierce, glittering slits—her mouth contorted into a savage snarl. “And I alone,” she added, “could make that world pay for the terrible mistreatment it had inflicted on my father.”

“And is that then your name,” I softly inquired. “Cordelia?”

She shook her head emphatically, causing the ringlets of her long, jetty tresses to dance about her face. “No. It was merely his affectionate sobriquet. My true name is … Lenore.”

“Lenore,” I repeated. “Indeed, I have always felt that there is a strange—sonorous—singularly melancholy—beauty which inheres in that particular appellation.” I paused momentarily before inquiring: “And what, in the end, became of the man?”

“The terrible humiliation he had suffered in America left an incurable wound upon his soul. Seeking to salve his pain with drink, he sank, by gradual but inevitable degrees, into hopeless degradation. Before his death from a terminal phthisis, he had taken to the street as an Abraham-man.”

“An Abraham-man!” I gasped. I had heard rumors of these odious creatures—wretchedly debased beggars who roamed the thoroughfares of London in the guise of raving Bedlamites, hoping for alms from pitying passersby Even the intense and life-long antipathy I bore for my father could not prevent me from shuddering with pity at the thought of this abominable—if not entirely undeserved—fate.

“And so,” I said, “you made your way back to these shores, resolved to wreak vengeance on those you held responsible for his destruction.”

“Yes,” she hissingly replied. “He told me the tale many times—of that fateful evening on the stage of the New Theatre, and of those jeering, mocking beings who had driven him into a shameful exile. But they will jeer and mock no more! My work here is nearly done. And nothing can prevent me from completing it.”

As of yet, Crockett had still not reappeared. Seeking to distract my new-found sibling for as long as possible, I remarked: “I perceive that you are an inordinately strong-willed young woman.”

“Even so,” she replied with a cold smile. “Look—lying there beside you. The book I was reading when you first appeared It was one of our father’s dearest possessions.”