dead girl had been his wife, and produced letters signed with the
name which those in her possession had borne. Von Rosen was
convinced. There was something about the boy with his haughty, almost
sullen, oriental manner which bore the stamp of truth. However, when
he demanded only the suit-case which his dead wife had brought when
she came to the house, Von Rosen was relieved. He produced it at
once, and his wonder and disgust mounted to fever heat, when that
Eastern boy proceeded to take out carefully the gauds of feminine
handiwork which it contained, and press them upon Von Rosen at
exorbitant prices. Von Rosen was more incensed than he often
permitted himself to be. He ordered the boy from the house, and he
departed with strong oaths, and veiled and intricate threats after
the manner of his subtle race, and when Jane Riggs came home, Von
Rosen told her.

"I firmly believe the young rascal was that poor girl's husband, and
the boy's father," he said.

"Didn't he ask to have the baby?"

"Never mentioned such a thing. All he wanted was the article of value
which the poor girl left here."

Jane Riggs also looked relieved. "Outlandish people are queer," she
said.

But the next morning she rushed into Von Rosen's room when he had
barely finished dressing, sobbing aloud like a child, her face
rigidly convulsed with grief, and her hands waving frantically with
no effort to conceal it.

Chapter IV

The little Syrian baby had disappeared. Nobody had reckoned with the
soft guile of a race as supple and silent as to their real intentions
as cats. There was a verandah column wound with a massive wistaria
vine near the window of the baby's room. The little nurse girl went
home every night, and Jane Riggs was a heavy sleeper. When she had
awakened, her first glance had been into the baby's crib. Then she
sprang, and searched with hungry hands. The little softly indented
nest was not warm, the child had been gone for some hours, probably
had been taken during the first and soundest sleep of the household.
Jane's purse, and her gold breast pin, had incidentally been taken
also. When she gave the alarm to Von Rosen, a sullen, handsome Syrian
boy was trudging upon an unfrequented road, which led circuitously to
the City, and he carried a suit-case, but it was held apart, by some
of the Eastern embroideries used as wedges, before strapping, and
from that came the querulous wail of a baby squirming uncomfortably
upon