“My darling Anna, listen to me, will you? In the first place not having received your telegram, I had no suspicion whatever that Lenny was lost, else of course I should have been on the _qui vive_ to find him, and should have followed the voice until I should have got possession of him. But when I first heard him calling me in his strong, cheerful, peremptory little tones, I looked around, fully expecting to see you, Drusilla, the boy and his nurse all come out in force to meet me at the station. But when I failed to see little Lenny or any of you, I considered myself the victim of an auricular illusion.” “But you do not now?” “No, indeed. I feel sure it was Lenny whom I heard calling me. And since you have told me of the abduction and of the detective policeman’s theory of it, I recall to mind the figure of a disreputable looking woman with a child in her arms hurrying out of sight in among the crowd. I remember that the woman’s back was towards me and that a shawl was thrown over the child’s head. I had but a glimpse of them as they slipped into the crowd.” “Oh, Dick! Dick! if you had but known! What a fatality!” “It was indeed. But now I must go and give this information into Scotland Yard, that the detectives may institute a thorough search in the neighborhood of the railway station where I saw him.” “Shall I tell Drusilla?” “Well, let me see:—No, not just yet. I must think about it first. It might increase her anxiety.” “But it would assure her that her child is alive and well and in the city.” “Yes; that is true. Yet you better not tell her until my return. She would be consumed with anxiety to see the one who had really seen and heard little Lenny, and to hear from him all about it. Don’t you understand?” “Of course; but don’t be gone long, Dick. Hurry back as fast as you can, and perhaps you may get here as soon as she does.” “I will lose no time.” “But you are just off a journey. Won’t you take something before you go?” “No, Anna; I will wait until I get back,” answered Richard Hammond, as he arose and left the room. Leaving Anna pacing the floor in great excitement and impatience, he went down to the street, threw himself into a hansom and drove immediately to Scotland Yard. There he made his report, and offered from his own means an additional reward to accelerate the motions of the officers. He hurried back to the Morley House and up to the drawing-room, where he found Anna still pacing the floor. She turned suddenly around to meet him. “I have started them on the new scent, dear,” he said, throwing himself wearily into a chair. “And you are here, as I hoped, before Drusilla has returned; so she will not have to wait for her news.”