It's years and years that all the world has given him up for lost. Now, mark what I say: I feel morally certain that this Richard, as you call him, is that same child, and heir to all the Lestrange property! That woman, Tuke--what a name!--she's the nurse that carried him off; and who knows but the man married her for the chance of what the child's succession might bring them! They mean to tell the fellow, when the proper time comes, how they saved him from being murdered by his stepmother, and carried him off at the risk of their lives! Well they knew him for a pot of money! You may be certain they've got all the proofs safe! I hate the ugly devil! What right has he to come to an estate, and have my children looked down upon by Mrs. Bookbinder! I'll put a spoke in her wheel, though! I'll have one little finger in their pie! They shan't burn their mouths with it--no, not they!' I treasured every word my mother said--I was so glad all the while to think of Richard as the head of the family. I could not help the feeling that I belonged to the family, for was not the same blood in Richard and in us? 'Alice,' my mother said, 'mark my words! That Richard, as you call him, is heir to the title and estate! But if you speak one word on the subject until I give you leave, to your Richard or to any live soul, I'll tear your tongue out--I will!--And you know well that what I say, I do!' I knew well that poor mamma very seldom did what she said, and I was not afraid of her; but I grew more and more afraid of doing anything to interfere with Richard's prospects. I met him one night in Regent-street, a terrible, stormy night, and was so fluttered at seeing him, and so frightened lest I should let something out that might injure him, that I nearly killed myself by running against a lamp-post in my hurry to get away from him. But to be quite honest with you, Barbara, what I was most afraid of was, that he would go on falling in love with me; and that, when he found out what we were to each other, it would break his heart: I have heard of such a thing! For you see I durst not tell him! And besides, it mightn't be so, after all! So I had to be cruel to him! He must have thought me a brute! And now for him to appear, far away from everywhere, just in time to save me from dying of cold and hunger--ain't it wonderful?” But Barbara sat silent. It was her turn to sit thinking and thinking. Why had the strange story come to her ears? There must be something for her to do in the next chapter of it! “How much do you think Richard may know about the thing?” she asked. “I don't believe he has a suspicion that he is anything but the son of the bookbinder,” Alice answered. “If Mrs. Tuke did take him, I wonder why it really was. What do you think, Barbara? To me she does not look at all a designing woman. She may be a daring one: I could fancy her sticking at nothing she saw reason for! If she did it she _must_ have done it for the sake of the child!”