repression--and yet in her clear eyes there gleamed the understanding of
the depths.

"May God have mercy upon--the child!" was what she said, and by those
words she took her stand between past wrong and hope of future justice.
"You must take this child, Doris," she said. "All that you know and feel
but make the course imperative and inevitable."

"Sister, how can I--feeling as I do?"

"Can you afford not to? Can you leave it--to such a man?"

"But, Sister, you do not know him. If I should conquer my aversion and
take the child, if I succeeded in loving it--he would bide his time and
claim it. The law that made this horrible thing possible covers his
claim to the child."

Angela drooped back in her chair. She looked old and beaten.

"He must not have the child," she murmured. "It's the only chance for
the salvation of Meredith's little girl. He _shall_ not have it!"

Doris bent toward the fire holding her cold, clasped hands to the heat.
Suddenly she turned.

"I am growing nervous," she said, "I thought I heard someone pressing
against the window--I thought I saw--a shadow drift outside in the
moonlight."

Angela started and sat upright. Every sense was alert--she was