"There are just the two of us," replied Gerda. "I am nine years older than he is, so I've always felt almost like a mother to him. Shall I tell you everything? Quite from the beginning? Miss Harding will excuse us for talking to-night. When our terrible trouble came upon us Ronnie was only fifteen months old--such a darling! He could just walk and say little words. I have his photo inside my work-box. You can imagine the grief it was to part with him, our baby, who'd never been a day from us. Mother was very brave--she realized that she had to decide between Father and her boy, and of course she chose Father. We knew it was entirely for Ronnie's good. Mrs. Trevellyan would bring him up in the old family home as an English boy should be, and would make him her heir; and we could only take him from one foreign place to another, and give him nothing but poverty and a tarnished name. You know, of course, that my father was accused of having forged a codicil to his uncle, Squire Trevellyan's will. By a round of misfortune everything seemed to combine in his disfavour. One witness to the codicil was dead, the other was missing, and though advertisements were put in the papers offering a reward for news of his whereabouts he could not be found. Mr. Forster, the lawyer who had drawn up both the will and the codicil, was dead, so there was no evidence on Father's side, and the case went heavily against him. "The codicil having been disproved, the public prosecutor stepped in and issued a warrant to arrest my father on a charge of forgery. In the circumstances, with no witnesses obtainable, it was not considered wise for him to stand the doubtful chance of a trial, and acting on the advice of his best friends, though very much against his own wishes, he quietly left the country. For nearly five years he, Mother, and I have lived together in various continental towns, constantly moving on, as we feared the foreign police might recognize the description circulated at the time of his escape and arrest him under an extradition warrant. For safety we changed our name at almost every place. I cannot express the wretched uncertainty and the misery of this hunted life, especially when we knew the charge to be so utterly false. There would have been only one worse evil--to see him wrongfully sentenced and sent to a convict prison. The dread of that possible horror we endured from day to day. Meantime Mother, though she would not confess it, fretted terribly at Ronnie's loss. As year after year went by, and she pictured him growing older, it became harder and harder for her to exist without hearing the least word about him. "'If I had even one poor little snapshot photo it would comfort me,' she said once. 'It would show me my darling is well and happy and cared for in his new home.'