Is it Gretchen dead in this house ?' 'No,' Frank answered huskily.

'It is not Gretchen, if that picture is like her, for this woman is very dark and old, and, besides that, has Gretchen a child ?' For an instant Arthur stood staring at him, or rather at the space beyond him, as if trying to recall something too distant or too shadowy to assume any tangible form; then bursting into a laugh he said: 'Gretchen a child! That is the best joke I have heard.

How should Gretchen have a child?
She is little more than one herself, or was when I saw her last.

No, Gretchen has no child.

Why do you ask ?' 'Because,' Frank replied, 'there was a little girl found in the Tramp House with this woman, a girl three or four years old, I judge.