“I cannot say that I have any definite object in mind,” responded the physician, suavely; “possibly I imagined I might be on the brink of a discovery. However, that is neither here nor there; if you are desirous of finding the gentleman who adopted your child, it may be that I can assist you, if, after you confide in me your reasons for seeking him, I shall deem it advisable.”
Mrs. Marston started slightly at this.
“Do you know August Damon?” she asked.
Doctor Turner smiled.
“Madame,” he said, “did you imagine that the gentleman who took your babe would be any less cautious than yourself in such a transaction? You were known as Mrs. Marston, but frankly confessed that the name was an assumed one. Your object was to find the child a good home and then drop out of sight altogether, so that those who took it should never be able to identify you afterward. Did you suppose it was to be a one-sided affair, that you were to have all the power and advantage in your own hands?—that if you withheld your true name they would give you theirs?”
Mrs. Marston, as we must still call her, flushed hotly.
“Then Damon was not the true surname of those people,” she said, in a crest-fallen tone.
“No, madame.”
“What was it?”
Doctor Turner did not reply for a moment.