what she said; 'if you'd just take the child. She's a dear
little thing, and not old enough at two months to have learnt any harm,
and Jane Sands would be good to her, I know she would, for the sake of
old times. And I'll go away and never come near to trouble you
again--I 'll promise it. Oh! just look at her! If it wasn't so dark
you'd see she was like mother. Why, you can feel the likeness if you
just put your hand on her little face; often in the night I 've felt
it, and I never did with the boys. She's very good, and she's too
little to fret after me, bless her!--and she 'll never know anything
about me, and needn't even know she has a father, and he 's not ever
likely to trouble himself about her.'

Her voice grew more and more pleading and entreating as she went on,
for there was not the slightest response or movement in the still
figure before her, less movement even than in the old yew-tree behind,
whose smaller branches, black against the sky where the orange of the
sunset was darkening into dull crimson, stirred a little in the evening
air.

'Oh! you can't refuse to take her! See, I'll carry her as far as the
door so that Jane can take her, and then I 'll go clear away and never
come near her again. You 'll have her christened, won't you? I 've
been thinking all the weary way what she should be called, and I
thought, unless you had a fancy for any other name' (a little stifled
sigh at the thought of how dear one name used to be to him), 'I should
like her to be Zoe. Just when she was born, and I was thinking,
thinking of you and home and everything, that song of yours kept
ringing in my head, "Maid of Athens," and the last line of every verse
beginning with Zoe. I can't remember the other words, but I know you
said they meant "My life, I love you;" and Zoe was life, and I thought
when I'm gone my little girl would live my life over again, my happy
old life with you, and make up to you for all the trouble her mother's
been to you.'

She stopped for want of breath and for the cough that shook her from
head to foot, and at last he turned; but even in that dim light she
could see his face plainly enough to know that there was no favourable
answer coming from those hard set lips and from those cold steady eyes,
and her hand dropped from his arm even before he spoke.

'You should have thought of this five years ago,' he said. 'I do not
see that I am called upon to support Martin Blake's family. I m