"Do?" said the professor. "I'll get five thousand a year from Calvert, or have both him and Mrs. Fane arrested. Your evidence will hang her and give him a life-sentence." CHAPTER XVI A SURPRISE Tracey, in the interests of the lovers, continued to live in the cottage at Hampstead. Webb had let him the house furnished, and Luther made himself comfortable in a bachelor fashion. He cooked his own meals, and made his own bed, and kept the house as neat as a new pin. One day Gerty came to see him, accompanied by her mother. How she induced that lymphatic woman to come was a mystery. Tracey was not easily astonished, but he was fairly taken aback when he saw stout Mrs. Baldwin being towed up the path by Gerty. It was like a breathless steam-tug conducting a three-decker out of port. "What I've suffered," said Mrs. Baldwin, sinking into a basket-chair which almost collapsed under her weight, "no one can understand." "Oh come, mother," said Gerty cheerfully, "you had a cab to the top of the hill, and my arm to the door." "You are nothing to lean upon," sighed Mrs. Baldwin. "If it was Rufus, now. He had an arm like a blacksmith, and the soul of a poet." Tracey giggled. He was amused by Mrs. Baldwin's whimsical ways. "Will you tell me what brought you here?" he asked, with his arm round Gerty. "You may well ask that," said Mrs. Baldwin, fanning herself with her handkerchief; "and if you have such a thing as wine----" "Only whisky--old Bourbon," snapped Luther, and supplied Mrs. Baldwin with a brimming glass in spite of her asseveration that she never took such strong drink. If not, she appreciated it, and finished the glass while talking. "Gerty must tell you what I want," she said, nursing the glass. Luther turned to his fiancée with an inquiring look. Something very strange must have occurred to bring Mrs. Baldwin so far. "Mother is upset," said Gerty: "she fancies she saw her husband." "My second," explained Mrs. Baldwin. "Not Gerty's father, who was a gentleman, but Rufus." "The man with the blacksmith's arm and poet's soul," said Luther. "I thought he was dead and buried long ago." "No," said the old lady. "I have never seen any announcement of his death. He is alive, and I saw him. Two nights ago I was reclining in the parlour, trying to soothe my nerves with a novel. Rufus appeared at the window, which was open, the night being warm. I shrieked aloud at the sight of his face. He ran away," finished Mrs. Baldwin, sighing. "Didn't you light out after him?" "I went out to rebuke him for his desertion of the twins. But he was gone like a dream. I have come to you to ask if you will advertise for Rufus. Assure him that all will be forgotten." "Is there anything to forget?" asked Gerty. Mrs. Baldwin suddenly sat up with energy, and her eyes glittered. No one would have thought that she possessed such spirit. "Yes," she said, in a hard voice, "there is much to forget. Rufus treated me like a brute. He always was a brute."