He stepped along briskly in the moonlight, and to his surprise and joy he found the old woman leaning over the front gate in a dejected attitude, as if loneliness had driven her outdoors to seek companionship with nature. "Ah, Mrs. Jenks, good evening!" he exclaimed abruptly, pausing in front of her and lifting his hat. Granny started wildly, and snapped: "I don't know you!" "You have a poor memory," laughed Mr. Clarke. "Now, I knew you at once as Mrs. Jenks, who nursed my wife when our daughter Roma was born. My name is Edmund Clarke. We used to live in Brookline. I sold my property there and moved away when Roma was an infant." "I never heard of Brookline before, nor you, either!" snapped granny. "Your memory is bad, as I said before, but you won't deny that your name is Jenks?" Mr. Clarke returned. As the whole town knew her by that name, she felt that denial was useless, but she preserved a stubborn silence, and he continued: "I came to ask you, granny, how you came by such a beautiful granddaughter." "Humph! The same way as other people come by grandchildren, I s'pose. My daughter ran away to be an actress, and came back in a year without a wedding ring, and left her baby on my hands, while she disappeared again forever," returned granny, with an air of such apparent truthfulness that he was staggered. He was silent a moment, then returned to the charge. "How old is Liane?" "Only seventeen her next birthday." "I should have taken her for quite eighteen." "Then you would have made a mistake." "Is her mother dead?" "I don't know. I never heard of her after she ran away and left her baby on my hands." "Eighteen years ago?" "No; not quite seventeen, I told you, sir." "And you do not really remember Mrs. Clarke, whom you nursed at Brookline eighteen years ago? Come, it ought to be fresh in your memory. Do you not recall the distressing facts in the case? The infant was stolen from my wife's breast, and she was dying of the shock when a spurious daughter was imposed on her, and she recovered. You, Mrs. Jenks, were sent to the foundling asylum for the child, and laid it on Mrs. Clarke's breast, restoring her to hope again. You cannot have forgotten!" Granny Jenks looked at him angrily in the moonlight. "You must be crazy! I don't know you, and I don't care anything about your family history! Go away!" she exclaimed fiercely. Mr. Clarke was baffled, but not convinced. He stood his ground, saying firmly: