every wind that has whispered has told it aloud ever since. If I hide it
from you someone else will start up and tell. If I deny it, then the
very stones in the street will cry it out. Yes, it was me--wretched,
miserable me--the most miserable, the most guilty woman alive--it was
me."

My heart went out to her in fullness of pity--poor, unhappy woman!
sobbing her heart out; weeping, as surely no one ever wept before. I
wished that Heaven had made anyone else her judge than me. Then she sat
up facing me, and I wondered what the judge must think when the sentence
of death passes his lips. I knew that this was the sentence of death for
this woman.

"You never knew what passed after, did you?" I asked.

"No--not at all," was the half sullen reply--"not at all."

"Did you never purchase a Brighton paper, or look into a London paper to
see?"

"No," she replied.

"Then I will tell you," I said, and I told her all that had passed. How
the people had stood round the little baby, and the men cursed the cruel
hands that had drowned the little babe.

"Did they curse my hands?" she asked, and I saw her looking at them in
wonder.

"Yes; the men said hard words, but the women were pitiful and kind; one