"No. I followed my husband from place to place; but I had to cross the Atlantic. I came up with him in a town in a Western State. When I found him, he got a divorce for incompatibility of temper. I lost both my husband and my child, and neither of them died." "Oh! And then--then you came back to look for the boy?" "No; I married John Haveril. It was before he made his money." "And now you come to me for information about the child, who must be a man by this time?" "I've never forgotten him, doctor. I never can forget him. Every day since then I have thought of him. I said, 'Now he's six; now he's ten; now he's twenty.' And I've tried to think of him as he grew up. Always--always I have had the boy in my mind." "Yes; but surely---- Perhaps you had no more children?" "No; never any more. And last spring I fell ill--very ill. I was----" "What was the matter?" She told him the symptoms. "Yes; nerves, of course. Fretting after the child." "You know. The American doctor did not. Well, and while I was lying in my dark room, I had a dream. It came again. It kept on coming. A dream which told me that I should see my child again if I came to London. So my husband brought me over." "And you think that you will find your child?" "I am sure that I shall. It is the only thing that I have prayed for. Oh, you need not warn me about excitement; I know the danger. I don't care so very much about living; but I want that dream to come true. I must find the boy." "You might as well look for him at the bottom of the sea. Why, my dear lady, your boy was intended to take the place of a dead child; I am sure he was. I know nothing at all about him. There is no clue--no chance of finding the child." "Do you know nothing?" "Upon my honour, madam, I cannot even guess. The lady did not give me her name, and I made no inquiries." "Oh!" Her face fell. "I had such hopes. At the theatre, yesterday, I saw a young man who might have been my son--tall, fair, blue-eyed. Oh, do you know nothing?" "Nothing at all," he replied decidedly. "And you came here," he went on, "remembering my name, and wondering whether it was the same man? Well, Mrs. Haveril, it _is_ the same man, and I remember the whole business perfectly. Now go on." "Where is that child, doctor?" "I say that I don't know. I never did know. The lady gave me the money, received the child at the railway station. You brought it to the waiting-room. She had an Indian ayah with her, and the train carried her off, baby and all. That is all I can tell you." Mrs. Haveril sighed. "Is that all?" "Madam, since such precautions were taken, it is very certain that no one knew of the matter except the lady herself, and she will certainly not tell, because, as I have already told you, the case looked like substitution, and not adoption." "What can I do, then?" "You can do nothing. I would advise you to put the whole business out of your head and forget it. You can do nothing."