"Be calm, be calm, Miss Jane," said Atkins, coolly, as he laid a hand upon her arm. "The matter is in no way decided! A trace which appeared only to vanish immediately, and which leaves us only a weak prop for future investigation; that is at present the only result I can impart to you."
Miss Forest had already regained her self-possession. "Very well! It is the first sign of life and being. What have you discovered? How did you discover it?"
Atkins quietly drew her to the sofa, and sat down by her side.
"Moderate your impatience, Miss Jane. I will be brief and clear as possible; you may learn later the results. You know that as we passed through Hamburg I took all necessary steps, I notified the police, I advertised in the public journals; but as usual in such cases, no answer came. Four weeks after, at your request, I returned to Hamburg to convince myself personally, of the hopelessness of our efforts. The first days of my stay, this seemed to be the only result of my journey; but on the third, a sailor came to see me."
"A sailor?" repeated Jane in astonishment.
"Yes, he had just landed, and had accidentally seen my advertisement. He came to tell me that twenty years before, some neighbors of his parents, poor fishermen who lived in a little village on the coast of the North Sea, coming from Hamburg, where they had been to market, had brought with them a boy they had found there, had kept him and reared him with their own son. The man's statement was so positive that it induced me to pay him the reward offered, and to write at once to the designated place."
Jane had listened with passionate intentness.
"And you have received an answer?"
"Yes, an answer with the minutest details. You will yourself read the letter, it has convinced me that this boy was really our young master Forest. The date, the age, the incidental descriptions, all agree with my advertisement. The failure of our investigations hitherto is easily explained. With the usual indiscretion of such people, instead of notifying the authorities of their discovery of the lost child, these fishermen calmly waited for some person to claim him sooner or later, and meantime, adopted him as their own. To that wretched, sandy fishing-hamlet, shut out from all the world, a newspaper scarce ever penetrates, this accounts for the failure of Doctor Stephen's efforts to find the child."
"Well, what about these people?" interrupted Jane, with eager impatience.