"Molly, I thought I was coming home with a discovery that was a clincher. And I believe I've gone and muddled the thing." "Well, but tell us." He told them. "But what more do we want?" asked Molly. "The child that died was hers." "So I believe--I am sure. I remember how she took it--and her lies, and her pretences, and her rage. It wasn't the wrath of an innocent woman, Molly; it was the wrath of a woman found out and driven to bay. I am sure of it." "Then what does she mean by this letter?" "It's her reply. It means defiance." "Ought we to go, then?" "I don't know. I think that I was wrong to go. But that may make it right for Alice to go." Alice did go. She took Molly with her because she wanted support. She went filled with doubt. The woman's letter was confident and braggart; but there was the discovery of the child's death, and there was the resemblance. She came away, as you shall see, in certainty, yet more in doubt than before. They found themselves in a room in which not only the refinement which may be purchased of an artistic decorator is visible, but the refinement which can only be acquired by many generations of wealth and position and good breeding. Books, pictures, curtains, carpets, furniture,--all bore witness to the fact that the tenant was a gentlewoman. The Anglo-American, born and brought up in the poverty of London clerkery; accustomed to the bare surroundings of poverty in the Western States; able to command, after many years, and to enjoy, the flaunting luxury of a modern hotel; felt with a sense of sinking, that her son--if this was her son--must have been brought up with social advantages which she could never have given him. On the table lay a small bundle tied up with a towel; curiously out of place this simple bundle looked among the things beautiful and precious of this drawing-room. You know how a little matter will sometimes revive an old recollection. What had this parcel wrapped in a towel to do with that time, twenty-four years ago, when the mother, broken-hearted, laid her child in the arms of the doctor who carried it into the railway station? Yet she was reminded of that moment--that special moment--in the history of her bereavement. To be sure, the mind of the woman was easily turned to this subject. It possessed her; she could think of nothing else, except when Molly came to talk and sing to her. The door was opened and a lady came in. She was not dressed in nearly so costly a manner as her visitor, but her appearance impressed. She was a great lady in manner and in appearance. She was also gracious. Though a speaker on platforms, an advocate of many causes, she was still feminine and dignified. She produced the effect which she desired without apparent effort. She carried in her hand a bundle of letters and papers. She bowed to her visitors.