All at once a man entered the back door, and came toward her.
“Why, Mr. Ross, is that you? I didn’t hear the bell,” she exclaimed, smoothing down her apron.
“I did not ring, Mrs. Laurence; I wished to find you alone. Look at this, and tell me if it is positively the shawl that came around that child, and that you put in pledge?”
Mrs. Laurence wiped her moist hands on a towel, and unfolded the shawl.
“Of course it’s the same shawl, wherever it came from. There is no mistake about that. I can swear to the curl in every one of these long leaves.”
“It is then absolutely the garment that came around the child you adopted?”
“Yes; I am ready to swear to it, if that is what you want.”
“No; there is no need of that.”
Again Ross folded up the shawl, and left the house, passing swiftly through the yard, and looking at Ruth, who sat at the window, without a consciousness of her presence.
Mrs. Carter and Eva were still in the reception-room. The pawnbroker had retreated to the hall, where he sat on one of the carved chairs, crouching uneasily forward, and holding a rusty hat clenched in his hand. His eyes were full of hungry anxiety; for the reward which he had hoped for seemed slipping from his grasp. Still he waited, in abject patience, determined to press his claims to the utmost.