fixed, some vision of the past which was far more real than the
unsubstantial present. Presently he went on talking in a reflective
undertone:

"All this I told Mrs. Meredith, and a great deal besides, for I was still
in the first violence of bitter, self-reproachful grief. I wanted to be
rid of the child, the cause of the catastrophe, whom I hated as
vehemently as I had loved its mother, and I begged Mrs. Meredith to help
me to dispose of it in such a fashion that, to me at least, the little
one should be to all intents and purposes as dead as she was. Babies, I
knew, had not a very strong hold on life, and I hoped, as a matter of
fact, that it might really die, but this I did not dare to say aloud.
Mrs. Meredith was kind to me. I remember well how good and sympathetic
she was. She had heard most of the story from Juliana, whose friend she
was, and it was at her house that the child was born. We had confided in
no one else. She sat silently for a while after I had finished what I had
to say, till at last she turned to me and tried to persuade me to alter
my intention of disowning the baby. But I repeated doggedly that unless
she had some alternative way to suggest of getting rid of it, I meant to
leave the little girl at the door of one of the foundling hospitals, and
that I would take her that very night.

"At length, seeing that I was resolved, she said she thought she could
manage better than that. She had a friend, she said, an elderly Russian
lady, who was a widow and childless. This lady was anxious to adopt a
little English girl, and had lately written to ask her to find her a baby
whom she could bring up as her own child. There was no reason why
Juliana's baby should not be the one. She would write at once and suggest
it. I was greatly relieved at this idea. Although I had been determined
to do as I proposed, whatever opposition I might meet with, my conscience