“Why?” I asked. “Has the mother come?”
“No, but some one came and paid the boy’s board for a month. She talked to him for a long time, but when I asked him afterward he didn’t know her name.”
“A young woman?”
“Not very young. About forty, I suppose. She was small and fair-haired, just a little bit gray, and very sad. She was in deep mourning, and, I think, when she came, she expected to go at once. But the child, Lucien, interested her. She talked to him for a long time, and, indeed, she looked much happier when she left.”
“You are sure this was not the real mother?”
“O mercy, no! Why, she didn’t know which of the three was Lucien. I thought perhaps she was a friend of yours, but, of course, I didn’t ask.”
“She was not—pock-marked?” I asked at a venture.
“No, indeed. A skin like a baby’s. But perhaps you will know the initials. She gave Lucien a handkerchief and forgot it. It was very fine, black-bordered, and it had three hand-worked letters in the corner—F. B. A.”
“No,” I said with truth enough, “she is not a friend of mine.” F. B. A. was Fanny Armstrong, without a chance of doubt!
With another warning to Mrs. Tate as to silence, we started back to Sunnyside. So Fanny Armstrong knew of Lucien Wallace, and was sufficiently interested to visit him and pay for his support. Who was the child’s mother and where was she? Who was Nina Carrington? Did either of them know where Halsey was or what had happened to him?