"Soon after I took the place, some gipsy fellows broke into the poultry yard, and stole some valuable chickens--which were great pets of my wife. I chased them and, finally, brought home the guilt of the theft to one of the men, in whose tent a lot of their feathers were found. He had been previously convicted, and was sentenced to a term of penal servitude. "Before the trial his wife--also a gipsy--called upon me, and begged me not to appear against her husband, This, of course, was out of the question, as he had already been sent to trial. When she found that her entreaties were useless she, in the most vindictive tone, told me that I should repent it; and she certainly spoke as if she meant it. "I heard nothing more of the matter, until the boy was sixteen months old. Then he disappeared. He was stolen from the garden. A clue was left, evidently that I might know from whom the blow came. The gipsy had been convicted partly on the evidence of the feathers; but principally from the fact that the boot, which he had on, had half the iron on the heel broken off, and this tallied exactly with some marks in my fowl house. An hour after the child was gone we found, in the center of the drive, in the park, a boot, conspicuously placed there to catch the eye; and this boot I recognized, by the broken iron, as that which had transported the gipsy. "That the woman had stolen the child, I had not the least doubt; but neither of her, nor it, could I ever gain the slightest clue. I advertised in every paper in the kingdom, I offered a reward of 1000 pounds, and I believe the police searched every gipsy encampment in England, but without success. "My wife had never been strong and, from that day, she gradually sank. As long as there was hope she kept up, for a time. I hoped all would go well; but three months afterwards she faded rapidly and, ere six months had passed from the loss of the child, I buried her, and came straight out to India. I went home once, for two or three months, upon business connected with my property there, some seven years since. That was when we last met, you know, at the club. With that exception, I have remained here ever since." "The trouble will be, I fear," Colonel Shepherd said, "for you to identify him. That vindictive gipsy woman, who stole your child, is not likely to have left any marks on its clothing by which it might be identified at any future time, and her revenge on you frustrated." "Thank God!" the colonel said, earnestly, "if it be my son, he bears a mark by which I shall know him. That was one of his poor mother's greatest comforts. The child was born with an ugly blood mark on its neck. It used to bother my wife a good deal, and she consulted several surgeons whether it could not be removed; but they all said no, not without completely cutting out the flesh--and this, of course, was not to be thought of. After the child was lost I remember, as well as if it had been spoken today, my wife saying: