stopped loving Marion. She'd foreseen, when she learned Marion was coming back, that she would have to give me up, and she hadn't been willing to give me up entirely. She wanted the boy for herself. She meant to go straight for his sake. She didn't succeed in doing that. The courts, she said, took the child away from her when he was a little over two years old. Afterward she lost trace of him. There was some confusion of the records and the boy's identity was lost. Ten days ago, at the beginning of her illness, she saw him on the street and recognized him."
"Recognized him? A child of eight whom she had not seen since he was two?"
"The child's likeness to me attracted her attention and she had investigations made by private police who established his identity. She was to have the boy there for me to see. I didn't know what to do. I went back there and found her dead. The nurse who had attended her was there with her. The boy had been there but had got away. He must have slipped out, the nurse said, while she was telephoning the doctor.
