"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 stoutly.