"Yes, sir," said Mr. Tatlow, "a female child a few weeks old. She was going up to her aunt, no doubt, but the old woman was dead. When they heard at Hodder's that Emily was about the place, and with a child too, the firm was furious, and gave orders that none of their people should speak to or have any communication with her; but this girl--Mary Keith she's called; I made a note of her name, sir, thinking you would like to know it--she found out where the poor creature was, and offered to share her wages with her and the child to save them from starvation."
"Good God!" groaned Humphrey Statham; "was she in want, then?"
"Pretty nearly destitute, sir," said Tatlow; "would have starved probably, if it had not been for Mary Keith. She owned up to that girl, sir, all her story, told her everything, except the name of the child's father, and that she could not get out of her anyhow. She spoke about you too, and said you were the only person in the world who had really loved her, and that she had treated you shamefully. Miss Keith wanted her to write to the child's father, and tell him how badly off she was; but she said she would sooner die in the streets than ask him for money. What she would do, she said, would be to go to you--she wanted to see you once more before she died--and to ask you to be a friend to her child! She knew you would do it, she said--though she had behaved to you so badly--for the sake of old days.
"I sha'n't have to try you with very much more, sir," said Tatlow kindly, as he heard a deep groan break from Humphrey Statham's lips, and saw his head sink deeper on his breast. "Miss Keith advised E. M. to write to you; but she said no--she wanted to look upon your face again before she died, she said, and she knew that event was not far off. So she parted with her old friend, taking a little money, just enough to pay her fare up to town. She must have changed her mind about that, from what I learned afterwards. I made inquiries here and there for her in London in what I thought likely places, but I could hear nothing of her, so the scent grew cold, and still my case was incomplete. I settled it up at last, as I say, about a fortnight ago. I had occasion to make some inquiries at Hendon workhouse about a young man who was out on the tramp, and who, as I learned, had slept there for a night or two in the previous week; and I was talking matters over with the master, an affable kind of man, with more common-sense than one usually finds in officials of his sort, who are for the most part pig-headed and bad-tempered. The chap that I was after had been shopman to a grocer in the City, and had run away with his master's daughter, having all the time another wife; and this I suppose led the conversation to such matters; and I, always with your case floating in my head, asked him whether there were many instances of foundlings and suchlike being left upon their hands? He said no; that they had been very lucky--only had one since he had been master there, and that one they had been fortunate enough to get rid of. How was that, I asked him; what was the case? Case of a party"--and here Mr. Tatlow referred to his note-book again--"found the winter before last by Squire Mullins' hind lying against a haystack in the four-acre meadow, pressing her baby to her breast--both of them half-frozen. She was taken to the workhouse, but only lived two days, and never spoke during that time. Her shoes were worn very thin, and she had parted with most of her clothing, though what she kept had been good, and still was decent. No wedding-ring, of course. One thing she hadn't parted with; the master's wife saw the old woman try to crib it from the dead body round whose neck it hung, and took it from her hand. It was a tiny gold cross--yes, sir, I see you know it all now--inscribed 'H. to E., 30th March 1864'--the very trinket which you had described to our people; and when I heard that, I knew I had tracked Emily Mitchell home at last."
Mr. Tatlow ceased speaking; but it was some minutes before Humphrey Statham raised his head. When at length he looked up, there were traces of tears on his cheeks, and his voice was broken with emotion as he said, "The child--what about it? did it live?"
"Yes, sir," replied Tatlow, "the child lived, and fell very comfortably upon its legs. It was a bright, pretty little creature, and one day it attracted the notice of a lady who had no children of her own, and, after some inquiries, persuaded her husband to adopt it."
"What is her name, and where does she live?" asked Mr. Statham.
"She lives at Hendon, sir, and her name is Claxton. Mr. Claxton is, oddly enough, a sleeping partner in the house of Mr. Calverley, whose good lady first recommended E. M. to Mivenson's, as you may recollect."
There was silence for full ten minutes--a period which Mr. Tatlow occupied in a deep consultation with his note-book, in looking out of window, at the tips of his boots, at the wall in front of him; anywhere rather than at the bowed head of Humphrey Statham, who remained motionless, with his chin buried in his chest. Mr. Tatlow had seen a good deal of suffering in his time, and as he noticed, without apparently looking at the tremulous emotion of Mr. Statham's hands, tremulous despite their closely-interlaced fingers, and the shudder which from time to time ran through his massive frame, he knew what silent anguish was being bravely undergone, and would on no account have allowed the sufferer to imagine that his mental tortures were either seen or understood. When Humphrey Statham at length raised his head, he found his visitor intently watching the feeble gyrations of a belated fly, and apparently perfectly astonished at hearing his name mentioned.
"Mr. Tatlow," said Humphrey, in a voice which, despite his exertions to raise it, sounded low and muffled, "I am very much your debtor; what I said at the commencement of our interview about the delay which, as I imagined, had occurred in clearing-up this mystery, was spoken in ignorance, and without any knowledge of the facts. I now see the difficulties attendant upon the inquiry, and I am only astonished that they should have been so successfully surmounted, and that you should have been enabled to clear-up the case as perfectly as you have done. That the result of your inquiries has been to arouse in me the most painful memories, and to--and to reduce me in fact to the state in which you see me--is no fault of yours. You have discharged your duty with great ability and wondrous perseverance, and I have to thank you more than all for the delicacy which you have shown during the inquiry, and during the narration to me of its results."