“Oh, yes! I remember very well how surprised mother seemed, and how she scolded about something. I suppose it was because father took the baby out.” “Strange!” muttered Ross. That moment Mrs. Laurence came into the room. “You here, Mr. Ross?” she said, in her cold, half-indifferent fashion. “Yes, madam. As an old friend of your husband’s, I have taken the liberty of coming often, hoping to benefit his child a little.” Mrs. Laurence looked at him, keenly. She was naturally a suspicious woman, and intimate association with a person connected with the police had not improved her faith in human nature. She had seen this man regarding Eva with looks that troubled her, and naturally supposed that his extreme kindness to Ruth had some reference to the more beautiful daughter. “Mr. Ross,” she said, with curt honesty, “I don’t remember my husband having a friend in the world that I didn’t know something about; but so far as I can remember, he never mentioned the name of Ross to me in his life.” “The name of Ross!” cried the man, half starting from his chair. “No wonder! what an idiot I was to forget! But it is so long since I have known my other name. My dear madam, have you never heard your husband speak of Herman Ross Baker?” This name seemed to strike Mrs. Laurence dumb. She stood for half a minute, gazing at the man, as if a ghost had started up before her. The little color natural to her face died out. Even her lips grew white. “Herman Ross Baker,” she repeated. “And are you that man?” “That is my name, Mrs. Laurence; and the only one your husband ever knew me by. I am an artist, and in other countries chose to call myself Ross, leaving the rest of the name so long out of use that I almost forget it myself. Now, I hope that we are not altogether strangers, by name at least.” Mrs. Laurence dropped into a chair, and clasped both hands in her lap. “So, you are that man!” There was a look of absolute terror in the woman’s face. She sat staring at Ross, with weird curiosity, as if he had been a ghost. “I never thought you would come—never wanted you to come,” she said, at last, wringing her hands with a show of passion of which her countenance, in its set expression gave little sign; “but when the dead order, the living have only to obey. That which he left must be given, though it breaks us all up and turns the house into a tomb.” The woman rose from her seat, and began to walk the floor, while Ross and her daughter sat regarding these movements with intense surprise. “What do you mean, mother—of what are you speaking? Mr. Ross cannot understand,” said Ruth, arising with pain from her cushions.