“There’s an outlandish young man around here,” said she, “and you had better keep that baby close.”

Von Rosen laughed.  “Those people are always about,” he said.  “You have no reason to be nervous, Jane.  There is hardly a chance he has anything to do with the baby, and in any case, he would not be likely to burden himself with the care of it.”

“Don’t you be too sure,” said Jane stoutly, “a baby like that!”

Jane, much against her wishes, was obliged to go out that afternoon, and Von Rosen was left alone with the baby with the exception of a little nurse girl who had taken the place of Mrs. Bestwick.  Then it was that the Syrian man, he was no more than a boy, came.  Von Rosen did not at first suspect.  The Syrian spoke very good English, and he was a Christian.  So he told Von Rosen.  Then he also told him that the dead girl had been his wife, and produced letters signed with the name which those in her possession had borne.  Von Rosen was convinced.  There was something about the boy with his haughty, almost sullen, oriental manner which bore the stamp of truth.  However, when he demanded only the suit-case which his dead wife had brought when she came to the house, Von Rosen was relieved.  He produced it at once, and his wonder and disgust mounted to fever heat, when that Eastern boy proceeded to take out carefully the gauds of feminine handiwork which it contained, and press them upon Von Rosen at exorbitant prices.  Von Rosen was more incensed than he often permitted himself to be.  He ordered the boy from the house, and he departed with strong oaths, and veiled and intricate threats after the manner of his subtle race, and when Jane Riggs came home, Von Rosen told her.

“I firmly believe the young rascal was that poor girl’s husband, and the boy’s father,” he said.

“Didn’t he ask to have the baby?”

“Never mentioned such a thing.  All he wanted was the article of value which the poor girl left here.”

Jane Riggs also looked relieved.  “Outlandish people are queer,” she said.

But the next morning she rushed into Von Rosen’s room when he had barely finished dressing, sobbing aloud like a child, her face rigidly convulsed with grief, and her hands waving frantically with no effort to conceal it.

Chapter IV

The little Syrian baby had disappeared.  Nobody had reckoned with the soft guile of a race as supple and silent as to their real intentions as cats.  There was a verandah column wound with a massive wistaria vine near the window of the baby’s room.  The little nurse girl went home every night, and Jane Riggs was a heavy sleeper.  When she had awakened, her first glance had been into the baby’s crib.  Then she sprang, and searched with hungry hands.  The little softly indented nest was not warm, the child had been gone for some hours, probably had been taken during the first and soundest sleep of the household.