"
"Why?" I asked. "Has the mother come?"
"No, but some one came and paid the boy's board for a month. She
talked to him for a long time, but when I asked him afterward he
didn't know her name."
"A young woman?"
"Not very young. About forty, I suppose. She was small and
fair-haired, just a little bit gray, and very sad. She was in
deep mourning, and, I think, when she came, she expected to go at
once. But the child, Lucien, interested her. She talked to him
for a long time, and, indeed, she looked much happier when she
left."
"You are sure this was not the real mother?"
"O mercy, no! Why, she didn't know which of the three was
Lucien. I thought perhaps she was a friend of yours, but, of
course, I didn't ask."
"She was not--pock-marked?" I asked at a venture. "No, indeed.
A skin like a baby's. But perhaps you will know the initials.
She gave Lucien a handkerchief and forgot it. It was very fine,
black-bordered, and it had three hand-worked letters in the
corner--F. B. A."
"No," I said with truth enough, "she is not a friend of mine."
F. B. A. was Fanny Armstrong, without a chance of doubt!
With another warning to Mrs. Tate as to silence, we started back
to Sunnyside. So Fanny Armstrong knew of Lucien Wallace, and was
sufficiently interested to visit him and pay for his support.
Who was the child's mother and where was she? Who was Nina
Carrington? Did either of them know where Halsey was or what had
happened to him?
On the way home we passed the little cemetery where Thomas had
been laid to rest.
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