Mountain, and you're the only man I seen in court that looks as if he'd
do it.' He told me he had a child up there--or thought he had--a little
girl; and he wanted her brought down and reared like a Christian. I was
sorry for the fellow, so I went up and got the child." He paused, and
Charity listened with a throbbing heart. "That's the only time I ever
went up the Mountain," he concluded.

There was a moment's silence; then Harney spoke. "And the child--had she
no mother?"

"Oh, yes: there was a mother. But she was glad enough to have her go.
She'd have given her to anybody. They ain't half human up there. I guess
the mother's dead by now, with the life she was leading. Anyhow, I've
never heard of her from that day to this."

"My God, how ghastly," Harney murmured; and Charity, choking with
humiliation, sprang to her feet and ran upstairs. She knew at last: knew
that she was the child of a drunken convict and of a mother who wasn't
"half human," and was glad to have her go; and she had heard this
history of her origin related to the one being in whose eyes she longed
to appear superior to the people about her! She had noticed that Mr.
Royall had not named her, had even avoided any allusion that might
identify her with the child he had brought down from the Mountain; and
she knew it was out of regard for her that he had kept silent. But
of what use was his discretion, since only that afternoon, misled by
Harney's interest in the out-law colony, she had boasted to him of
coming from the Mountain? Now every word that had been spoken showed her
how such an origin must widen the distance between them.

During his ten days' sojourn at North Dormer Lucius Harney had not