hbone was
shared by those who beat knew him, I returned to the one spot most
likely to afford me a clue to, if no explanation of, this elusive
mystery.

What did I propose to myself? First, to revisit Mrs. Carew and make the
acquaintance of the boy Harry. I no longer doubted his being just what
she called him, but she had asked me to call for this purpose and I had
no excuse for declining the invitation, even if I had desired to do so.
Afterward--but first let us finish with Mrs. Carew.

As she entered her reception-room that morning she looked so
bright--that is, with the instinctive brightness of a naturally
vivacious temperament--that I wondered if I had been mistaken in my
thought that she had had no sleep all that night, simply because many of
the lights in her house had not been put out till morning. But an
inspection of her face revealed lines of care, which only her smile
could efface, and she was not quite ready for smiles, affable and
gracious as she showed herself.

Her first words, just as I expected, were:

"There is nothing in the papers about the child in the wagon."

"No; everything does not get into the papers."

"Will what we saw and what we found in the bungalow last night?"

"I hardly think so. That is our own special clue, Mrs. Carew--if it is a
clue."

"You seem to regard it as such."

With a shrug I declared that we had come upon a mystery of some kind.

"But the child is not dead? That you feel demonstrated--or don't you?"

"As I said last night, I do not know what to think. Ah; is that the
little boy?"

"Yes," she gaily responded, as the glad step of a child was heard
descending the stairs. "Harry! come here, Harry!" she cried, with that
joyous accent which a child's presence seems to call out in some women.
"Here is a gentleman who would like to shake hands with you."

A sprite of a child entered; a perfect sunbeam irradiating the whole
room. If, under the confidence induced by the vision I had had of him on
his knees the night before, any suspicion remained in my mind of his
being Gwendolen Ocumpaugh in disguise, it vanished at sight of the
fearless head, lifted high in boyish freedom, and the gay swish, swish
of the whip in his nervous little hand.

"Harry is playing horse," he cried, galloping toward me in what he
evidently considered true jockey style.

I made a gesture and stopped him.

"How do you do, little man? What did you say your name is?"

"Harry," this very st