cedent in her passion and her woe?

"It is--it was--a secret. I have to confess to the abnormal. The child
did not love me; has never loved me. Lavish as I, have been in my
affection and caresses, she has never done aught but endure them. Though
she believes me her own mother, she has shrunk from me with all the
might of her nature from the very first. It was God's punishment for the
lie by which I strove to make my husband believe himself the father
which in God's providence he was not. I have borne it; but my life has
been a living hell. It was that you saw in my face--nothing else."

I was bound to believe her. The child had made her suffer, but she was
bent upon recovering her--of course. I dared not contemplate any other
alternative. Her love for her husband precluded any other desire on her
part. And so I admitted, when after a momentary survey of the task yet
before me, I ventured to remark:

"Then we find ourselves once more at the point from which we started.
Where shall we look for his child? Mrs. Ocumpaugh, perhaps it would aid
us in deciding this question if you told me, sincerely told me, why you
had such strong belief in Gwendolen's having been drowned in the river.
You did believe this--I saw you at the window. You are not an actress
like your friend--you expected to see her body drawn from those waters.
For twenty-four hours you expected it, though every one told you it was
impossible. Why?"

She crept a step nearer to me, her tones growing low and husky.

"Don't you see? I--I--thought that to escape me, she might have leaped
into the water. She was capable of it. Gwendolen had a strong nature.
The struggle between duty and repulsion made havoc even in her infantile
breast. Besides, we had had a scene that morning--a secret scene in
which she showed absolute terror of me. It broke my heart, and when she
disappeared in that mysterious way--and--and--one of her shoes was found
on the slope, what was I to think but that she had chosen to end her
misery--this child! this babe I had loved as my own flesh and blood!--in
the river where she had been forbidden to go?"

"Suicide by a child of six! You gave another reason for your persistent
belief, at the time, Mrs. Ocumpaugh."

"Was I to give this one?"

"No; no one could expect you to do that, even if there had been no
secret to preserve and the child had been your own. But the child did
not go to the river. You are convinced of that now, are you not?"