Page:The achievements of Luther Trant - Balmer and MacHarg - 1910.djvu/135

Rh whom they saw running and mistook for Edward—and the teacher, running back, took Edward by mistake. But she must have discovered her mistake when she rejoined the others."

"Only after she got on the car. There one of my former servants recognized him and took him to her home."

"And when the servant came to tell you, and you understood how Miss Hendricks' suggestibility had played into your hands, the temptation was too much for you, and you made this last desperate attempt to discredit Mrs. Eldredge. I see!" He stood back and let her by.

Raymond Murray, after bringing back the boy, had disappeared. In the hall Eldredge and his wife bent over the boy, the woman completely hysterical in the joy of the recovery, laughing and crying alternately. She caught the boy to her frantically as she stared wildly at a woman ascending the steps.

"The woman in red—the woman in red!" she cried suddenly

Trant stepped to her side quickly. "But she doesn't look big and dark to you now, does she?" he asked. "And see, now," he said, trying to calm her, "the dress is violet again. Yes, Mr. Eldredge, this, I believe, is the woman in violet—the small blond woman who took your boy from the park by mistake—as I will explain to you. She is coming, undoubtedly, in response to an advertisement that I put in The Journal this noon. But we do not require her help now, for Mrs. Murray has told me all."

The maid, Lucy Carew, ran suddenly up the hall.