yment for a favor!" the woman exclaimed. "What do you mean? I owe
you nothing. I never saw you before. What favor?"

"The favor of silence. I know what you were thinking about to-night as
you sat here. Your thoughts were in the past, to another night such as
this. You were in a private hospital, and----"

He was interrupted by a startled cry from the woman. She was sitting
bolt upright, her hands gripping hard the arms of the chair, and her
face ghastly white.

"W-what do you know?" she gasped.

"Calm yourself, madame. Although I know all, you have no need to fear."

For a few seconds the woman stared at the man before her. Then she
gave an hysterical laugh and sank back in her chair. What did this
stranger know? she wondered. Perhaps nothing, and she had made a fool
of herself by showing her agitation.

"My nerves are somewhat shaken to-night," she confessed. "I have not
been well of late, so your sudden appearance and strange words have
rather unsettled me. What do you mean by referring to another night
such as this, and to a private hospital? What have they to do with me?"

"A great deal, I should say, madame. If you doubt my knowledge, it is
only necessary to mention the name of Hettie Rawlins, now my wife, Mrs.
Gabriel Grimsby."

"Hettie Rawlins!" the woman's face showed her perplexity.

"Yes, Hettie Rawlins, the girl who exchanged the babies. Don't you
remember her?"

But the woman did not reply. She sat staring at the man before her.

"There is no doubt now about my knowledge is there?" the stranger asked
with a smile.

"Heavens, no!" the unhappy woman groaned. "And to think that after all
these years I should be thus confronted in my own house, and by a
complete stranger. And so your wife told you all?"

"Everything, although she kept the secret for a long time. She told me
how you bribed her to exchange your little baby boy for a girl which
was born in the hospital on the same day, and the amount you gave the
baby's mother for making the exchange."

"Stop, stop," the woman pleaded. "You will kill me."

"But you know it all, madame. You were thinking about it to-night,
were you not?"

"I was, I was," and the woman buried her face in her hands.

Presently she lifted her head.

"Where is the boy?" she asked in a hoarse whisper. "Is he alive?"

"And so you are interested in him, madame?"

"Interested? Why, he is with me night and day. Though he must be a
young man