"What business had you in Sandy Ferguson's cottage?"
"He took us in when we hadn't any place to go to. I thought he was kind at first, but he wasn't."
"Then you had run away from somewhere else?"
"Yes," Elsie admitted, with a flushed face and look of shame. "We ran away from home."
"What made you do that?"
Elsie hung her head. How could she tell this gentleman all her suspicions? They seemed all so stupid now.
"We were jealous because mother favoured Robbie so," she faltered, very much ashamed, and conscious that it was one of the most foolish-sounding reasons that could be.
"Well," said the gentleman sharply, "you ran away, and you fell in with Sandy Ferguson, who wanted to kill you, and afterwards with this lady, who taught you to call her 'mamma.' Was she kind to you?"
"At first she was. When she first saw us on the road we were very hungry and tired. She asked us the way, and said she was a fairy, and would come back again. She did come back, and brought beautiful clothes with her, which she gave to us, and she took us in a train to a house where we had beautiful and nice warm beds. Then she told us we were to call her 'mamma' always, and that she was our 'fairy mother.'"
"This is very interesting," said the old gentleman, approvingly. "But what of the gentleman? Was he there?"