unciation not only of any claim but any interest in your
child. That is what you have just signed, and what it will be our duty
now to keep you to. From this moment we stand between you and her, as
we stand between her and the world. Are you ready to see her grow up
away from you, losing even the little recollection she has had of your
kindness--passing you in the street without knowing you, perhaps even
having you pointed out to her as a person she should avoid? Are you
prepared to shut your eyes and ears henceforth to all that you may hear
of her new life, when she is happy, rich, respectable, a courted
heiress--perhaps the wife of some great man? Are you ready to accept
that she will never know--that no one will ever know--that you had any
share in making her so, and that if you should ever breathe it abroad
we shall hold it our duty to deny it, and brand the man who takes it up
for you as a liar and the slanderer of an honest girl?"

"That's what I came here for," she said curtly, then, regarding them
curiously, and running her ringed hand up and down the railed back of
her chair, she added, with a half laugh, "What are you playin' me for,
boys?"

"But," said Colonel Pendleton, without heeding her, "are you ready to
know that in sickness or affliction you will be powerless to help her;
that a stranger will take your place at her bedside, that as she has
lived without knowing you she will die without that knowledge, or that
if through any weakness of yours it came to her then, it would embitter
her last thoughts of earth and, dying, she would curse you?"

The smile upon her half-open mouth still fluttered around it, and her
curved fingers still ran up and down the rails of the chair-back as if
they were the cords of some mute instrument, to which she was trying to
give voice. Her rings once or twice grated upon them as if she had at
times gripped them closely. But she rose quickly when he paused, said
"Yes," sharply, and put the chair back against the wall.

"Then I will send you copies of this tomorrow, and take an assignment
of the property."

"I've got the check here for it now," she said, drawing it from her
pocket and laying it upon the desk. "There, I reckon that's finished.
Good-by!"

The Mayor took up his hat, Colonel Pendleton did the same; both men
preceded her to the door, and held it open with grave politeness for
her to pass.

"Where are you boys going?" she asked, glancing from the one t