The mother sat stupefied. In her hand she held a letter--her husband's latest letter. "In a day or two," he said, "my life's work will be finished. In a fortnight after you get this, I shall be at Southampton. Come to meet me, dear one, and bring the boy. I am longing to see the boy and the boy's mother. Kiss the boy for me;" and so on, and so on--always thinking of the boy, the boy, the boy! And the boy was dead! And the bereaved father was on his way home! She laid down the letter, and took up a telegram. Already he must be crossing the Alps, looking forward to meeting the boy, the boy, the boy! And the boy was dead. The ayah crouched down on a stool beside her mistress, and began whispering in her own language. But the lady understood. As she listened her face grew harder, her mouth showed resolution. "Enough," she said; "you have told me enough. You can be silent?--for my sake, for the sake of the sahib? Yes--yes--I can trust you. Let me think." Presently she went out; she walked at random into street after street. She stopped, letting chance direct her, at a surgery with a red lamp, in a mean quarter. She read the name. She entered, and asked to see Dr. Steele, not knowing anything at all about the man. She was received by a young man of five and twenty or so. She stated her object in calling. "The child I want," she said, "should be something like the child I have lost. He must have light hair and blue eyes." "And the age?" "He must not be more than eighteen months or less than a year. My own child was thirteen months old. He was born on December 2, 1872." "I have a large acquaintance in a poor neighbourhood," said the doctor. "The women of my quarter have many babies. If you will give me a day or two, I may find what you want." He made a note--"Light hair, blue eyes; birth somewhere near December 2, 1872,--age, therefore, about thirteen months." At a quarter before three in the afternoon a woman, carrying a baby, stood inside the railway station at Birmingham. She was young, thinly clad, though the day was cold; her face was delicate and refined, though pinched with want and trouble. She looked at her child every minute, and her tears fell fast. The doctor arrived, looked round, and walked up to her. "Now, Mrs. Anthony," he said, "I've come for the baby." "Oh! If it were not for the workhouse I would never part with him." "Come, my good woman, you know you promised." "Take him," she said suddenly. She almost flung him in the doctor's arms, and rushed away. Above the noise of the trains and the station, the doctor heard her sobbing as she ran out of the station. "She'll soon get over it," he said. But, as has already been observed, the doctor was as yet inexperienced in the feminine heart. * * * * * About six o'clock that evening the lady who had received the baby had arrived at her house in Bryanston Square.