"Oh, thank you! After all, the original is safer in your hands than
in mine. I might be murdered, but they would never dare to molest
you,--and if I should die, you would not allow them to rob my baby of
her name?"

"Your baby!"

He looked at the young girlish figure and face, and it seemed
impossible that the creature before him could be a mother. A
melancholy smile curved her lips.

"Oh! that is the sting that sometimes goads me almost to desperation.
My own wrongs are sufficiently hard to bear, but when I think of my
innocent baby denied the sight of her father's face, and robbed of
the protection of her father's name, then--I forget that I am only a
woman, I forget that God reigns in heaven to right the wrongs on
earth, and----"

There was a moment's silence.

"How old is your child?"

"Three years."

"And you? A mere child now."

"I am only nineteen."

"Poor thing! I pity you from the depths of my soul."