"A gray wig is easy to procure. What can be his motive?"
"It is difficult to conceive, Doctor. I have sometimes imagined that Mr. Lambert had a motive in so constantly visiting the poorer classes; but it is only a suspicion. I feel sure, if it were true, it would do honor to the kindness of the man. I told him the story of Neddy Carter's injury. He entered into it with great interest,-said he would get him a place in a printing-office and was almost angry that any one else had thought of purchasing artificial legs for the boy."
"Just what I wished to tell you from Mr. Regy. They are one and the same. Mr. Regy I shall continue to call him. See, here is the address he gave me."
"M. REGY, P.O. BOX 1009."
On her way home, Marion's thoughts were absorbed in trying to solve the motives which could govern such a man as Mr. Lambert, and induce him to figure in so many different characters; for the more she reflected the more she felt assured that he and Mr. Regy were the same. It might be that some early disappointment had thus twisted and gnarled a naturally lovely character. It might be that some one he had once loved and trusted had betrayed his confidence, and thus rendered him suspicious of all mankind. She resolved to watch him closely, and to endeavor to lighten his burden, whatever it might be.
Approaching her own door, she perceived a carriage standing there. With her thoughts still on the discovery she had made, she ran up the steps and encountered Eugene Cheriton struggling in the arms of James, who had been told to take him back to his mother in the parlor.
The boy readily yielded to her wish, and went upstairs with her, where she was both surprised and pleased to find not only Mrs. Cheriton but Mrs. Douglass awaiting her arrival.
The latter lady seemed to have taken out a new lease of life, since her return to the city. She acknowledged that she liked New York, and should leave it with reluctance.
"I hope you do not intend to leave it," urged Marion.
The lady glanced anxiously at her daughter before she answered. "Necessity may compel us to do so."