"Do you think it is fair," I asked, "that he should be so cruelly
deceived?--that he should lavish the whole love of his heart upon a
murderess?"

I shall not forget her. She sprang from the ground where she had been
kneeling and stood erect before me.

"No, thank Heaven! I am not that," she said; "I am everything else that
is base and vile, but not that."

"You were that, indeed," I replied. "The child you flung into the sea
was living, not dead."

"It was not living," she cried--"it was dead an hour before I reached
there."

"The doctors said--for there was an inquest on the tiny body--they said
the child had been drugged before it was drowned, but that it had died
from drowning."

"Oh, no, a thousand times!" she cried. "Oh, believe me, I did not
wilfully murder my own child--I did not, indeed! Let me tell you. You
are a just and merciful man, John Ford; let me tell you--you must hear
my story; you shall give me my sentence--I will leave it in your hands.
I will tell you all."

"You had better tell Lance, not me," I cried. "What can I do?"

"No; you listen; you judge. It may be that when you have heard all, you