it, and
that if Lord Robert Ure himself came and asked for it he would bundle him
out of doors.

But a carriage drew up at Mrs. Callender's one morning, and Lady Robert
Ure stepped out. Her pale and patient face had the feeble and nervous
smile of the humiliated and unloved.

"Mr. Storm," she said in her gentle voice, "I have come on a delicate
errand. I can not delay any longer a duty I ought to have discharged
before."

It was about Polly's baby. She had heard of what had happened at the
hospital; and the newspapers which had followed her to Paris, with
reports of her wedding, had contained reports of the girl's death also.
Since her return she had inquired about the child, and discovered that it
had been rescued by him and was now in careful keeping.

"But it is for me to look after it, Mr. Storm, and I beg of you to give
it up to me. Something tells me that God will never give me children of
my own, so I shall be doing no harm to any one, and my husband need never
know whose child it is I adopt. I promise you to be good to it. It shall
never leave me. And if it should live to be a man, and grow to love me,
that will help me to forget the past and to forgive myself for my own
share in it. Oh, it is little I can do for the poor girl who is
gone--for, after all, she loved him and I took him from her. But this is
my duty, Mr. Storm, and I can not sleep at night or rest in the day until
it is begun."

"I don't know if it is your duty, dear lady, but if you wish for the
child it is your right," said John Storm, and they got into the carriage
and drove to Soho.

"Boo-loo! Lal-la! Mum-um!" The child was tethered to the chair as usual
and talking to the world according to its wont. When it was gone and the
women on the doorsteps could see no more of the fine carriage of the
great lady who had brought the odour of perfume and the rustle of silk
into the dingy court, and Mrs. Pincher had turned back to the house with
red eyes and her widow's cap awry, John Storm told himself that
everything was for the best. The last link with Glory was broken! Thank
God for that! He might go on with his work now and need think of her no
more!

That day he called at Clement's Inn.

The Garden House was a pleasant dwelling, fronting on two of its sides to
the garden of the ancient Inn of Chancery, and cosily furnished with many
curtains and rugs. The Cockney maid who answered the door was familiar in
a moment, and during the short pa