She regarded him with a smouldering look in her eyes. Then she leaned forward, her hands gripping the arms of her chair. “I honestly believe you don’t know!” she whispered.
And in an instant she had taken from a little box on the table near which she sat an envelope. She drew from it a single sheet and passed it to Baron.
He turned a little, so that the light from the table fell upon it and read:
“Do be good to the little girl your husband has brought to you. You ought to be, because he is her father.”
There was no name. Baron handed the sheet back to her. He was thinking hard. “Who could have written it?” he asked.
“Of course you realize that I don’t know,” she replied. “Do you mean to ask me what I think?”
“Well, what do you think?”
“I think her mother wrote it. I think she must have lost track of the child, and concluded that Mr. Thornburg had taken her. I think she must have known of my—my jealousy on that other occasion. I think she wrote this note hoping that I would refuse to have the child in the house if I knew who she was. It seems plain that she wants her now.”
Baron was examining the date of the postmark on the envelope. She saw that furrows were gathering on his forehead.
She explained: “It came some time ago. I had it with me here when you called that first time.”