my own, own baby!"

The fixedness with which she eyed the child, though the blood was
streaming from her forehead and bathing with a still deeper red her
burned and blistered arms, made Mr. Sylvester's sympathetic heart beat.
Turning to the silent figure of Holt, he touched him on the arm and said
with a gesture in her direction:

"You have not deceived the woman? That is really her own child that lies
there?"

The man beside him, started, looked up with slowly comprehending eyes,
and mechanically bowed his head. "Yes," assented he, and relapsed into
his former heavy silence.

Mr. Sylvester touched him again. "If it is hers, how came she not to
know it? How could you manage to deceive such a woman as that?"

Holt started again and muttered, "She was sick and insensible. She never
saw the baby; I sent it away, and when she came to herself, told her it
was dead. We had become tired of each other long before, and only needed
the breaking of this bond to separate us. When she saw me again, it was
with another woman at my side and an infant in my arms. The child was
weakly and looked younger than he was. She thought it her rival's and I
did not undeceive her." And the heavy head again fell forward, and
nothing disturbed the sombre silence of the room but the low unvarying
moan of the wretched mother, "My baby, my baby, my own, own baby!"

Mr. Sylvester moved over to her side. "Jacqueline," said he, "the child
is dead and you yourself are very much hurt. Won't you let these good
women lay you on a bed, and do what they can to bind up your poor
blistered arms?"

But she heard him no more than the wind's blowing. "My baby," she
moaned, "my own, own baby!"

He drew back with a troubled air. Grief like this he could understand
but knew not how to alleviate. He was just on the point of beckoning
forward one of the many women clustered in the door-way, when there came
a sound from without that made him start, and in another moment a young
man had stepped hastily into the room, followed by a girl, who no sooner
saw Mr. Sylvester, than she bounded forward with a sudden cry of joy and
relief.

"Bertram! Paula! What does this mean? What are you doing here?"

A burst of sobs from the agitated girl was her sole reply.

"Such a night! such a place!" he exclaimed, throwing his arm about Paula
with a look that made her tremble through her tears. "Were you so
anxious about me, little one?" he whispered. "Would not your fears let