“Are you sure you are not deceived?” he asked. “I remember you told me that rogues had tried to impose on you, in past times when you employed people to find her.” “I have proof that I am not being imposed upon,” Mrs. Farnaby answered, still keeping her face hidden from him. “One of them knows of the fault in her foot.” “One of them?” Amelius repeated. “How many of them are there?” “Two. The old woman, and a young man.” “What are their names?” “They won’t tell me their names yet.” “Isn’t that a little suspicious?” “One of them knows,” Mrs. Farnaby reiterated, “of the fault in her foot.” “May I ask which of them knows? The old woman, I suppose?” “No, the young man.” “That’s strange, isn’t it? Have you seen the young man?” “I know nothing of him, except the little that the woman told me. He has written me a letter.” “May I look at it?” “I daren’t let you look at it!” Amelius said no more. If he had felt the smallest suspicion that the disclosure volunteered by Mrs. Farnaby, at their first interview, had been overheard by the unknown person who had opened the swinging window in the kitchen, he might have recalled Phoebe’s vindictive language at his lodgings, and the doubts suggested to him by his discovery of the vagabond waiting for her in the street. As it was, he was simply puzzled. The one plain conclusion to his mind was, unhappily, the natural conclusion after what he had heard--that Mrs. Farnaby had no sort of interest in the discovery of Simple Sally, and that he need trouble himself with no further anxiety in that matter. Strange as Mrs. Farnaby’s mysterious revelation seemed, her correspondent’s knowledge of the fault in the foot was circumstance in his favour, beyond dispute. Amelius still wondered inwardly how it was that the woman who had taken charge of the child had failed to discover what appeared to be known to another person. If he had been aware that Mrs. Sowler’s occupation at the time was the occupation of a “baby-farmer,” and that she had many other deserted children pining under her charge, he might have easily understood that she was the last person in the world to trouble herself with a minute examination of any one of the unfortunate little creatures abandoned to her drunken and merciless neglect. Jervy had satisfied himself, before he trusted her with his instructions, that she knew no more than the veriest stranger of any peculiarity in one or the other of the child’s feet. Interpreting Mrs. Farnaby’s last reply to him as an intimation that their interview was at an end, Amelius took up his hat to go. “I hope with all my heart,” he said, “that what has begun so well will end well. If there is any service that I can do for you--”