"In my pocketbook you will find papers telling where the persons are who will help you to find the boy. He was, at last accounts, in the care of a peddler woman in Pest. I learned this from a Vienna huckster. But I failed to find the woman in Pest, as she had removed to Debreczen. I could not follow her, but I learned that she had sent the child to a peasant woman in the country. Where? She alone can tell. Yet I learned this much from a girl that lived with her,--that the peasant woman into whose care the boy was given, and who made a business of taking such waifs, was often at the peddler woman's house, and complained that she didn't receive enough money to pay for the child's board. The woman lives poorly, I was told, and the boy goes hungry, and in rags." The speaker paused a moment, and his eyes filled with tears. "But it is a pretty child," he resumed. "The peasant woman brought the little fellow to town with her now and then, to prove that he was alive; he can always be identified by a mole in the shape of a blackberry on his breast. The peddler, out of pity and fondness for the child, used to pay the woman a little money--so I was told--and in that way the poor boy was kept alive. The mother has long ago forgotten him. Comrade, I shall hear the child's cries even after I am under the sod." "Don't worry about him," said Richard, "he shall not cry." "You'll find him, won't you? And there is money in my pocketbook to support him until he grows up." "I will hunt up the boy and take him under my care," promised the other. "Among my papers," continued the other, "you will find a formal authorisation, entitling the child to bear my name. Yet he is never to know who I was. Tell him his father was a poor soldier, and have him learn an honest trade, Richard." "You may rely on me, comrade Otto; I promise you to take care of the boy as if he were my own brother's child." A smile of satisfaction and relief lighted up the dying man's face. "And comrade," he added, "this secret that I am confiding to you is a woman's secret. Promise me, on your honour, that you will never betray that woman. Not even to my son are you to tell the mother's name. She is not a good woman, but let her shame be buried in my grave." Richard gave his promise in a voice that testified how deeply he was moved. The pale face before him grew yet paler, and ere many minutes had passed the eyes that looked into his became glazed and fixed; the wounded soldier had ceased to breathe. CHAPTER XXI. SUNLIGHT AND MOONLIGHT.